The Resident
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: AU, yes this was always going to be thing. Castiel catches his husband cheating on him, a handsome stranger offers him an amazing apartment, which just happens to have a secret. Dr!Cas, Stalker!Dean.
1. Chapter 1

_Oh yes, I watched 'The Resident' Who really doubted that I would?_

_You can follow me on twitter at JollySnidge, and read about my novel on my profile page – I'd be ecstatic if you did _

Castiel stands on the threshold of his bedroom. His keys are still in his hand, his shoes damp from the grass outside as Balthazar tells him that he can explain. Meg slinks into the bathroom, trailing Castiel's dark green robe, dark hair tangled, eyes twisting slyly his way, an arc of smeared lipstick on her cheek.

Castiel turns away, not wanting to see Balthazar's bare chest smudged with lipstick marks like ravenous bites, he walks out onto the landing, his pale green scrubs damp with suddenly cold sweat. There's still blood on them from where a patient busted his nose in the E.R.

Balthazar shuffles onto the landing, waist circled in a white sheet, gold hair damp with sweat.

"Cassy...I'm so sorry."

Castiel jerks away from the tentative touch to his shoulder. He goes downstairs and out into the afternoon light, walking away from the house that, up until that morning, had been his home.

(-*-)

After working at the hospital for five years, Castiel has yet to make a single good friend.

That is why, seven hours after finding his husband in bed with his sister, Castiel is still sitting alone in the bar he stumbled on that afternoon. He has nowhere to go, he can't return home, he certainly can't go to his parents. They had always looked disdainfully on his and Balthazar's relationship, partly because Balthazar was a creative from a new money family, but mostly because he was a man. For all Castiel knew they might even take Meg's side. She was after all a woman, and she had more of a right to any man in their eyes, than Castiel ever would.

A migraine is forming thanks to his hurt nose, dizzying pain swamping his brain as Castiel knocks back the remainder of his sixth beer. His closest acquaintance is Gabriel in paediatrics, but he doesn't know him well enough to impose on him for the night – let alone while he hunts for a new place to live, a process sure to take weeks, if not months.

Castiel doesn't even notice the man at the bar watching him, not until he comes over and places a fresh beer in front of him.

"You look like you could use it." The guy says gruffly, awkwardly as he turns to go back to his stool at the bar.

"Thank you." Castiel doesn't know why it is this act of kindness over everything else that makes him want to cry – but it does.

"Hey..." The guy looks mortified by the collection of water in Castiel's eyes.

"Sorry." Castiel blinks. "It's not exactly my best day."

"I can see that." The guy pauses for a moment before pulling the chair out opposite him and sitting down. "This connected with whatever did that to your face?"

"Unrelated." Castiel assures him.

"Jesus." The guy whistles, then twists in his seat. "Rufus, can we get some whisky over here?" He smirks wryly at Castiel. "This seems like a whisky problem."

Castiel can't hold down his huff of laughter.

Two whiskey's, his beer and a shot of tequila later – Castiel tells his new companion, Dean, exactly why he's sitting in a bar in bloody scrubs.

"Shit." Dean grunts. "What an asshole."

It's so blunt it makes Castiel laugh again, the difference between them really is quite staggering. Castiel with his closed off nature, and gregarious Dean in his paint spattered jeans and tight black shirt. Clearly of lower class than even Balthazar had seemed to the rest of Castiel's relatives.

Thinking of Balthazar makes him feel a little sick. Then sicker.

Once Castiel's thrown up in the alley behind the bar, Dean claps him on the back.

"Guess you need somewhere to stay tonight." The larger man surmises.

Castiel wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "It seems so." He sighs blearily.

"Come home with me then." Dean prompts.

Castiel looks uncertain.

"Seriously, It's cool. My Dad and I run an apartment building, there's a whole place just standing empty. I insist." He adds graciously.

Castiel goes with him, fuzzy headed. The building is a large, dark tenement, tastefully decorated. Dean takes them up in a clanking elevator. He opens the door to the empty apartment with a drunken flourish.

"There, bedroom's on the left. I'll be by in the morning..." he glances at his watch. "Well, later in the morning – to check on the place."

"Thank you." Castiel tells him sincerely.

Dean looks at him, a depth to his friendly green eyes that hadn't been there in the bar.

"No problem." He says shortly, hand sliding into his pocket idly. "Me and my Dad live across the hall, if you need anything."

Castiel closes the door softly and walks through the spacious, wood floored living room to the bedroom. There's a king size wood framed bed with white sheets that looks like heaven right about now. He pulls his scrubs off, crumbled and stained as they are, dropping them on the floor so as not to mark the pale cream chairs in the bedroom. In his underwear he crawls into bed, head pounding with alcohol and loneliness.

He passes out almost instantly.

(-*-)

Dean keeps to his word and knocks on the front door at eleven. Castiel opens the door in his scrubs, still damp from where he'd sponged some of the blood off of them. Dean hands him a cup of coffee and a plastic wrapped donut.

"Room service." He quips, glancing into the apartment. "Everything ok last night?"

"It was, very." Castiel smiles, taking the coffee and the pastry gratefully, his hangover demanding sugar and caffeine. "Thank you, so much."

"Still no problem." Dean grins.

A door slams up the corridor and Dean glances back at someone Castiel can't quite see.

"Bye Dad." Dean calls, and Castiel relaxes.

Dean closes the door behind him and shows Castiel the kitchen, sitting him down at the table to eat. The whole place is stunning, classically and spaciously designed, with class and austere style in its bare wood and high ceilings.

"You like it." Dean smirks, not questioning but sure of himself. "Everybody does."

"It is lovely." Castiel says honestly. "Far better than what I can hope to afford."

"Well, that depends what you can afford." Dean tells him, slipping easily into his sales patter. Castiel detects the change and flushes, embarrassed.

"I really am grateful to you...but I cannot begin to afford an apartment this luxuriant."

Dean smiles at that comment. "It's not so damn fancy, the maintenance train goes right by here, makes a noise like you wouldn't believe...and it's expensive to heat, old...pretty, but rotten to the core under all that handsome plaster."

Castiel tips his head uncertainly.

"It's thirty-eight a month." Dean tells him gently.

"Thousand?" Castiel's blue eyes widen.

"Hundred." Dean corrects him.

Castiel looks even more surprised, a crease in his brow as he mentally calculates his wages and what he can afford to spend on a new place to live.

"Can you afford that, Cas?" Dean asks softly.

"I think I could." Castiel says, surprising himself. "I definitely...yes." He nods decisively.

Dean looks amused and happy at that, eyes a deep green as they find Castiel's.

"I'll tell my Dad...get your references checked..." he smirks mischievously. "Or...I could move you in today? Leave all the paper work until after you've got a roof over your head."

Castiel feels relief cover him like a warm blanket. "Really?"

"Really." Dean assures him. "My Dad's friend, Bobby, he does removals – make a list up and I'll have him move your stuff out and into here today."

"I don't know if I can face him." Castiel admits, and they both know he isn't talking about Bobby.

"You can stay in the truck with me." Dean shrugs, amicably. "Bobby can get the stuff, and you don't even need to go in."

Castiel's smile is gentle and relieved.

Dean returns it pleasantly.

"Whatever you need." Dean promises.


	2. Chapter 2

_You can follow me on twitter and tumblr as JollySnidge _

Sitting in the dark green 'Singer's Removal Service' truck outside the house he and Balthazar had bought together, Castiel closes his eyes to the sight of the clumpy roses bordering the lawn, the door he'd painted white and the trim Balthazar had secured, badly, to the porch. It was a monument to their years together, and Castiel didn't want to see it.

Dean's hand touches his.

"You ok?" he asks softly.

"Yes." Castiel answers automatically, his eyes opening. Dean raises an eyebrow. "Ok, No. Very emphatically, not alright." Castiel concedes.

The interior of the truck smells of dust, the dangling pine tree on the mirror, and Dean's after shave, kind of clovey and close. It's weirdly comforting. The other man presses his hand to Castiel's shoulder, squeezing lightly.

"We won't be here much longer...I'll go help Bobby, speed things up." There's a silent question in the seemingly innocuous offer, and Castiel nods, watching Dean climb easily out of the cabin and approach the house.

He's not so pathetic that he need someone beside him at all times. Except...well, there has been someone with him at all times – Balthazar. He was there at home, stopping by the hospital to eat lunch with him (albeit, tellingly, not of late) and he'd shared with Balthazar every event, every morning and good night.

And now he was alone again.

It was a kind of shock to his system, and in truth Castiel didn't think he would be 'ok' for a long time. So where was the harm, the shame, in allowing someone like Dean to care for him? Dean had been nothing but amiable since they'd met, and Castiel is surprised to realise that Dean is the only real friend he's ever had. Despite meeting less than a day ago, he already feels more comfortable with the other man than he does with anyone else in his life, save for Balthazar.

Bobby Singer, an aging man with enviable strength and an introverted demeanour, finishes securing Castiel's meagre possessions in the back of the truck, and both he and Dean climb in on either side of Castiel. His list of things to be reclaimed from the house was not long. He'd been a med student when he met Balthazar, and as such his possessions had been limited. He didn't want anything they'd bought together, childish as it was, he knew he couldn't stand to see it anywhere near him.

The bed, of course, was staring within the house.

Once dropped off at the apartment, Bobby unloaded all the furniture and bags of things onto the sidewalk, before having to rush off to another job. Castiel didn't mind, it had been a free favour anyway, and he was very grateful for it.

"Ok then, let's get on with it." Dean picked up a suitcase and a box of books. Castiel collected a lamp and an end table, together they carried everything safely into the lobby and then into the elevator and up to the apartment.

Once everything was in place Castiel paused to swipe a hand over his forehead. Dean too was looking exhausted and Castiel felt guilty for taking such advantage of the other man, after all, Dean had done a lot for him in the past twenty-four hours.

"I'm sorry I haven't got anything to offer you." He gestures at the retro white refrigerator, standing empty on the other side of the kitchen. "Glass of water?"

Dean laughs easily and Castiel feels a prickle of pride, no one, not even Balthazar, had found him genuinely amusing. Though many found his awkwardness oddly funny, which he did not appreciate.

"That'd be great." Dean says and Castiel fills two of his newly unpacked glasses with water from the tap. He hands one over to Dean, astonished by the tickle of heat in his skin when their fingers touch. He'd never been incredibly sexual, or even overtly observant of other men, despite being gay – but Dean was very attractive, and his own reaction was not entirely unexpected.

Still, he found it both saddening and enjoyable that he could still feel that slight flare of excitement.

Dean drank the water down in one go, throat working seamlessly, quietly. He set the empty glass on the counter.

"Well, I have an upstairs apartment to paint...so, I'll be seeing you." Dean says pleasantly.

Castiel puts his own water down untouched.

"Would you like some help? I have the day off."

Dean looks pleasantly surprised.

"Seriously?"

"You've helped me a lot, finding the apartment, picking up my things...not mentioning my...vomiting, last night." Castiel blushes and Dean chuckles.

"Not exactly a new thing to me – my life 16 to 20? Kind of a blur." He shrugs. "But if you'd like to help..." His puzzled expression dissolves into a friendly grin. "Sure."

They spend the afternoon painting the upstairs apartment cream, Dean in his t-shirt and jeans from that morning, Castiel freshly changed into an old shirt and scrub pants. It's nice to focus on something simple, even if he does end up with paint in his hair, which makes Dean chuckle so much that he finds it hard to mind. And if, in holding the ladder whilst Dean paints the top of the walls, he gets a chance to ogle the strip of firm, tanned skin between his jeans and the rising hem of his tee, well, then, that's just a bonus. The mostly casual viewing of Dean is similar to the distraction of painting, a tonic to the memory of Balthazar. It may have only been a day since his relationship had crashed around him, but Castiel refuses to lose any part of himself to that betrayal. Wounded he may be, but he refuses to be crippled.

Still, when Dean invites him out for a beer that evening, Castiel wavers. It's too soon, both for more alcohol and for anything approaching a date. Thankfully Dean catches his reticence and holds up a hand.

"Hey, just a friendly thing – if you don't want to go, you can say."

"Maybe some other time." Castiel admits. "It's a little...I know you didn't mean it like that but..."

"Oh, I totally meant it like that." Dean's smirk is brazen, but his eyes slide shyly across the floor. "But...yeah, your choice."

Castiel's heart thumps once, nervously, but also excitedly. So he hadn't imagined the flare of energy in that one off hand touch. He's relived, at least he still has some of his instincts left. Even if he hadn't noticed his husband and his sister were sleeping together behind his back.

"Well...it's a yes...but, later." Castiel says, equally shyly.

"Great." Dean smiles, eyes meeting his in a flash of green before dropping nervously. "So...have a good evening." He adds awkwardly.

"You too." Castiel murmurs.

They part ways and Castiel still feels the buzz of flirtation in him when he's alone in his apartment. His exchange with Dean has left him heartened, at least someone finds him interesting, or at least attractive enough to be around. It's something he'd been doubting since the previous day.

Castiel orders take out and when it's delivered he eats it sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of wine from a bottle he'd had removed from the wine cellar at the house. It had seemed a strange thing to offer someone mid afternoon, so he hadn't mentioned it to Dean. Now he almost wishes that he had.

There's no shower in the apartment, just an old, claw footed tub, which Castiel fills with hot water in an attempt to sooth the aches in his back and to sluice the sweat from his skin. He takes off his clothes in the bathroom, hanging them on a plush chair in the corner. The room is more like a ladies dressing room than a bathroom, and the effect is oddly soothing.

There's no foam in the bath, he doesn't own anything like that, only plain white soap, with which he carefully washes his face, hands, arms. He rubs a palm full of fragile, creamy suds into his chest, fingers rubbing them through the dark hair under his arms. He soaks a wash cloth and squeezes the water out over the lathered skin, rinsing it perfunctorily. He closes his eyes and slides down, until the warm water closes over his head, running through his hair and soaking it. He raises his legs, knees bending so that he can remain underwater until he really has to take a breath.

He emerges in a rush of water, panting, his hair wet and plastered into his eyes. Castiel climbs out of the tub and pads carefully across the tile, finding a fluffy black towel, newly unpacked. He dries himself and wraps the towel around his waist. Finds his toothbrush, squeezes toothpaste onto it and stands in front of the mirror to clean his teeth. It's a full length panel of glass, and in it he can see that he's thinner than he remembers – there were no full length mirrors in his old house. He spits delicately into the basin and wipes his mouth with his fingers. It's then that he thinks he hears something, an unsteady, breathy sound – almost a groan.

The mirror shakes, the toothbrush slides from the side of the basin, down into the pale curvature.

The maintenance train rumbles below.

Castiel chides himself for being so easily spooked. He's never really lived alone before, but he's too old by far to be unnerved by the odd sounds of the train lines. He leans close to the mirror, inspecting his still bruised nose, resting one hand on the glass, fingers spread, to steady himself.

Healing nicely.

Things were looking up.


	3. Chapter 3

_You can follow me on twitter and tumblr as JollySnidge There's also a link to my novel on my profile page._

Castiel goes back to work the next day, against the advice of the chief of surgery, a stern faced man named Uriel who is at least professionally pleasant, even if slightly foreboding. Castiel cannot explain why he needs to be back at work, but he does, it helps to distract him from the loss of Balthazar, and the emptiness of his new home.

He tends to two car crash victims, hit by a truck on the edge of town, both lucky to be alive. The methodical workings of the drugs and surgical procedures is, if not soothing, at least complicated enough to lose himself to. Here he is Dr Novak, he checks Castiel at the door and leaves him idling in the reflective garden, watching the collared doves and sitting invisibly beside terminal patients. Inside, Dr Novak does his job, is thanked in a distant, professional way. Everything is pre-determined by hospital policy, his training takes care of the rest.

At two o'clock he takes his lunch break in the canteen, a plastic box of green salad with grilled chicken, a banana, enormous paper cup of coffee. He takes out his iphone, a present from his parents some time ago, with a pink silicone cover that marks the gift out as one intended for Meg. He rather likes the pink, sometimes he gives it to children to play with, watching them tap away at one of the games as he explains to their parents that it's really just a cold – or that their daughter will never walk again.

There are twelve voicemail messages. Thirty-five texts.

He's sitting alone, as usual, and he taps lightly at the icon to hear his messages, raising the phone slowly to his ear.

_Cassy...I'm so sorry, please, please call me. I want to..._

_...I came home and your things are gone, Castiel, please talk to me, I know it was..._

_...Cassy it was nothing, I just...God, I fucked everything up..._

_...Please call me..._

_...I feel so bad about...oh, God, everything, Meggy feels terrible – please talk to me?_

Castiel stops his voicemail and goes through a few of the texts, they're mostly the same, and he's seen so much of the words 'sorry' and 'please' that he never wants to use them again. At the bottom of the list there's a text from Dean.

_Hey Cas – some guy keeps calling Bobby about your new address – guess one of your neighbours saw the truck. Anyway – he's not going to give it up, so your secret's still safe. _

Another text comes through just as Castiel finishes reading the one from Dean.

_Kind of lame but – hope you're first day back's going ok,_

_D_

Castiel looks down at the message, feeling oddly grateful as he eats his bland salad. Neither Balthazar, nor the strangely silent Meg seemed overly concerned for his welfare. None of those desperate messages asked how he was, and Castiel felt oddly saddened by that. He'd expected more from a man he'd been ready to spend the rest of his life with.

Clearly he'd been mistaken.

Gabriel plunks down in the seat opposite him, mauve scrubs bearing a small winnie the pooh watch at the breast. Castiel blinks at the other man, he's never spoken to Gabriel outside of work, and everyone usually clumps together at lunch, leaving Castiel at peace in his corner.

"Hello?" he says cautiously.

"Hey." Gabriel is busily unwrapping a mars bar, dipping the thick chocolate into his steaming caramel latte. "You doing ok?"

Castiel feels even more wrong footed than before. "I...had a few surgeries today..."

"No, about the whole – your sister's a skank who's banging your utter prick of a husband...thing." Gabriel elaborates.

Castiel tenses, how had that made the rounds of the hospital already?

"Everybody knows?"

"Pretty much, what with Meg being on the board and all." Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Paediatrics is a lot more gossipy than people think – it's the kids, they make everyone super childish."

Castiel watches the other man devour his candy, feeling incredibly exposed by the knowledge that everyone knows his personal business. His sister is indeed on the hospital board, Meg was always the better people person of the two of them. He supposed twins were like that, one got certain traits, the other was stuck with what was left.

Gabriel proves to be surprisingly good company, so much so that Castiel almost overstays his break in the cafeteria. His phone pips with new messages even as he turns it off to go back to work. It's a touch afternoon, he treats a girl of six who's been in the ER five times in two months. This time he has to fix a lung punctured by a broken rib that's been left untended. He reports it, hoping social services will put a rush on their investigation.

He's still hung up on Ella, the sweet blond girl who's been playing with her ratty purple bunny all day while she's in recovery – so much so that by the time he gets home all he wants is a whisky and a warm bed.

Instead he runs into Dean's father in the hall.

"Oh, hello Sir." He says politely, though from Castiel politeness always sounds unfriendly, he's been working on that.

John Winchester, dark and gruff and not entirely easy to read just nods formally on his way past him.

Castiel appreciates distance and personal space more than most people. He values his own too much to encroach.

Sitting in front of his apartment door is a bottle of wine in a basket full of straw – the kind of thing you'd buy in a deli or fine foods market. He picks it up, bewildered, clearly it was put together by someone, and not just bought in a store as he had thought upon seeing it. The wine is a good vintage, very good, the bottle wiped clean of dust.

"Dad's kind of traditional like that."

Castiel turns and spots Dean standing at the doorway of his own apartment, plain black t-shirt over paint dotted jeans.

"It's to welcome you to the building." Dean explains.

"It's very generous...this is an excellent wine." Castiel says pleasantly, looking down at the label again.

"You know your stuff." Dean says approvingly. "Not like me, I'd prefer a nice whisky...or even really, really nasty whisky."

Castiel smiles softly at the joke. "Thank you, for the text earlier, by the way." He says softly.

"No problem, just..." Dean ducks his head.

Castiel looks at him, really looks for the first time. Dean is...unthinkably hot, there are no other words to describe him. Tall and broad, a body practically swollen with masculinity and muscle, nothing like anything Castiel had experienced before. But still, Dean's shyness ran bone deep, sending his lovely green eyes to look at the floor, his smile rising shyly, one sided.

Something in him just wants to put his hand under Dean's chin, lift his face and look him in the eye, find out what it would be like. Seeing eye to eye with a man like Dean.

"Thank you." He says again, instead. "Would you like...well, it's a lot of wine for one..."

Dean chances a brief look up, an electric dart of green before he looks down again, suddenly full of nervous energy.

"Sure."

Castiel feels Dean's presence behind him as he opens his apartment door. They go into the kitchen, Castiel pours wine into two glasses and then he and Dean retire to the couch in the living room.

"So, how war your day?" Dean asks.

Castiel rests with one leg up on the couch cushions, bent beneath the other. "It seems as though I've dominated conversation these last few days, how was your day?" he asks with self conscious courtliness.

"I sanded." Dean shrugs. "I sanded the floor of an entire apartment." He sips his wine. "Back to you." He half smiles.

"I had...well, a suspected abuse case, other than that? I fairly standard day, whatever that is where the ER is concerned."

"Are you ok?" Dean asks without an indulgent wince, more a serious question then a comment on the awfulness of the situation.

"I'm ok." Castiel frowns at his wine. "I feel like it shouldn't affect me, most people think doctors should be above it."

"Most people are idiots, in my experience." Dean sets his wine on the table. "A fancy medical degree doesn't stop you being human. Shit like that, it's practically ingrained in us to feel bad about." He pauses, as if embarrassed by his own strength of feeling. "Sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"No, that's exactly it." Castiel smiles slightly. "You're very good at that, getting to the heart of things."

"I've never had a way with talking – my Dad's the same, plain words, like that."

"It's a trait I wish my..." He was about to say husband but forces his mind to embrace a different word. "...my ex, would find in himself."

"He bothering you?" Dean asks, a dark furrow in his brows.

"He's left me a lot of messages." Castiel squirms uncomfortably. "I'm ignoring them."

"Must be hard, losing someone you love like that." Dean says, a question in it that Castiel is glad to answer.

"I didn't lose him – he lost me." Castiel tells him. "As sure as if he'd thrown me out himself."

With Dean leaning close and Castiel hunched over his own knees, their faces are quite close, the golden light of the single lamp illuminating them in a halo of warmth.

Castiel's iphone trills, ruining the moment of closeness. He snatches it up, looks at the display.

"Speak of the devil." Dean quips.

"He's..."Castiel frowns at the message in disbelief. "He's outside...he must have followed me from the hospital, the..." he glares at the phone angrily.

"I can get rid of him, if you want." Dean offers, standing smoothly, awkward now that an invisible third party is with them.

"No...he can just..." Castiel stands and moves closer to Dean. "He can get tired and go home in his own time...we were...having a drink." He finishes awkwardly.

"We were." Dean looks intensely at the ground, before his eyes fly up, a green so dark and unreadable as to be almost black. "I'll see you Cas."

Castiel is left in his living room, with the odd sense that something very fragile has been broken, disrupted by Balthazar's message. He drinks the last of his wine, touches Dean's half drunk glass, he lies down, drinks the leftover wine in it, tasting Dean's mouth in the impression left by his lips.

Something in the wall makes a hollow sound, an old pipe settling, perhaps a mouse scurrying.

Castiel takes a paperback to bed with him, lonely on his side of the big, wide bed. Outside he imagines Balthazar is waiting for his response, though of course the other man has probably left. He was never a patient man. Castiel's half of the bed, or rather, his third, as his body fails to take up even half the space – is warmed by him, the other side remains stubbornly cold.

He tastes loneliness, like old wine and thwarted intimacy, a flavour both he and Dean know well.


	4. Chapter 4

_You can follow me on twitter and tumblr as JollySnidge There's also a link to my novel on my profile page._

Balthazar's messages continue to come as the days roll by. Castiel ignores them still, goes about his work with fixated skill and swiftness. He spends his nights either in the on call room or at home, alone. Dean has been busy for the last week, working on the apartments in the building, one of which was recently vacated and needs renovating. When the building lacks the sounds of work, Dean is noticeably absent, gone; Castiel does not know where. The loss of Dean is palpable as if the dusty old building is missing it's beating heart.

Castiel sleeps in his lonely bed, wondering why he misses Dean so badly, Dean who is still practically a stranger. Perhaps it is only company he misses, indiscriminately. He still has his doubts as to the wisdom of beginning an affair with Dean, though the other man seems amenable to the concept. Castiel can't shake the feeling that it would be a mistake to start a new relationship from the embers of his marriage, especially with shy, almost naive Dean.

One thing that Castiel is settled on is that his marriage is most definitely over. Infidelity is not something he is prepared to accept as a mistake, or a slip on his partner part. Marriage is the essence of monogamy, and the fact that Balthazar reneged on that goes against the concept utterly. There is another side to it as well, should Balthazar have slept with another man, even a woman – Castiel could have seen the infidelity as something to do with Balthazar, something he himself wanted, or found lacking. But it had been Meg, Castiel's sister, not only that but his twin. That made the action about himself, something Balthazar wanted to do to Castiel, by way of this betrayal.

He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

In light of everything that had happened, Castiel felt somewhat entitled to avoid Balthazar's messages. He had no children to consider, no one to avoid hurting save himself. And he knew it would hurt, hearing Balthazar explain that he and Meg were in love, that despite everything, Castiel had just not been...enough.

Fun enough, sexy enough, female enough – the list would be endless.

So, almost a week after his return to the hospital, upon hearing a knock at his door, Castiel answered in his casual jeans and sweater, privately debating whether he should invite Dean in for another drink.

He opens the door to find Balthazar in a drenched black greatcoat.

His surprise lasts maybe a tenth of a second.

"Leave."

"Cassy, please just let me in." To his credit Balthazar looks awful, blond stubble sands his cheeks and his eyes have the hollow look they used to get when he'd spent the night working rather than sleeping.

Castiel steps back a little, against his better judgement. The look of relief on his husbands face is immediate, and Castiel tries hard to maintain his coolness in the face of it. He had not anticipated the depth of feeling Balthazar's appearance would evoke, but he feels it now, so familiar and so alien at the same time.

The door swings closed at Balthazar's back and he stands, half gesturing as if unsure what to do with his hands.

"I've missed you, so much." He says finally, stopping to lick his dry lower lip, worrying at it. "Castiel..."

"How's my sister?" Castiel interrupts.

"I haven't seen Meg since that day, I promise." Balthazar holds up his hands. "It didn't mean anything, I swear...I just..." He pauses at Castiel's heartbroken face. "That's not what I meant."

"It's what you said." Castiel takes a shaky breath. "You...you slept with someone else, Balthazar...I had to see that, I...and now you're telling me it was nothing. Glad to know this past week, feeling like this, was over nothing."

"She, meant nothing, but you mean everything." Balthazar is fierce as he ever was, pushing Castiel's boundaries as he moves closer. "Cassy...I felt like everything was just...passing me by, and we'd lost, whatever it was that made us...us." He touches Castiel's arm, feels him quiver. "I was lonely, and stupid and...I can't apologise enough, I know that...so please...just come home with me." His face drifts closer, and he's warm and familiar, smelling like ginger and coffee. "Please let me try to make this up to you...don't throw me away after all this time." The hand on his arm reaches up and touches Castiel's face, the thumb stroking across his cheek beseechingly.

"Why Meg?" He whispers desolately. "Anyone else...why her?"

"Because I have never liked her." Balthazar promises. "And I didn't want to feel anything, with anyone who wasn't you."

Castiel looks up into his husbands crinkled blue eyes. "You'd rather sleep with someone you hate, than with me."

"I'd rather cut out my heart than love anyone else." Balthazar vows, all his writerly viciousness showing in his words. "I'd rather die than lose you."

Castiel has always been sensitive to the artistic, the dramatic, being such a logical, staid soul himself. And with Balthazar's declaration in his ears, and his husbands familiar, warm body so near his own, he allows himself to relax just a little, to allow his beaten, broken love to crawl from its hiding place and show its face. His heart is bruised, but it still feels for Balthazar, so deeply.

When Balthazar kisses him it feels so normal, so right, that he doesn't even think to push him away, for at least a minute they cling together. Then Castiel remembers Dean, patient, plain Dean, and he pulls away from Balthazar's embrace.

"I need you to leave now."

"Cassy..."

"No, Balthazar. This is not something you can...romance away. You had sex with my sister, in my bed. Not even you can make that a gesture of love."

Balthazar at least has the decency to look thoroughly chided.

"I think you should go." Castiel tells him.

"If I come back, will you let me in again?"

Castiel honestly doesn't know.

"I still love you." Balthazar tells him at the door.

"I don't think that's enough." Castiel murmurs.

He feels flat once his husband has gone. He takes a beer out of the fridge, goes into the bathroom and runs a hot bath. He strips off, climbs into the plain, hot water, and uncaps the beer bottle. He can still feel the warm ghost of Balthazar on his skin, the touch of his soft, achingly familiar lips. God, it would be so easy to go back – but one there, back in that house...Castiel didn't think he'd be able to cope with the memories.

But he was so lonely. Odd and cold he may be, but he's human, and he misses the touch of another body, misses kissing and holding someone, misses sex.

Castiel drinks his beer, allowing the slight infusion of alcohol to soothe the edge off of his bitter loss. It does nothing alleviate his depression, but it allows him to relax. He sets the empty bottle aside and lowers his hands into the steaming water. Leaning his head back against a folded towel with a sigh he begins to touch himself, feeling only faint stirrings of lust – but comforted by their presence, he can still feel that at least.

He closes his eyes, feels the sweat brought on by the hot water flavour the chapped softness of his lips. He shifts his legs in the steaming bath, finding a rhythm, pushing upwards into his hand. Behind his closed lids he discards images of Balthazar, memories too painful to contemplate in this vulnerable moment. Instead he thinks of Dean on his ladder, the smooth flesh of his lower back revealed by the risen hem of his t-shirt. The way his smile curves, lopsided and self-effacing, the depth of his green eyes, soft, feminine mouth and stubborn jaw...

Castiel leans back, head rolling to one side, and in the last instant before his world shivers into warmth and feeling, he gasps Dean's name.

In the warren of wall cavities and dead spaces that make up the hidden portion of the building, Dean leans against the one way glass of the mirror, one hand and his forehead resting on the cold glass, the other hand down the front of his jeans.

His last, ragged breath chases a circle in the condensation on the mirror in the bathroom. A ghost breath.

He whispers 'Cas' as he closes his eyes,


	5. Chapter 5

_There was some confusion about Castiel suddenly being in the bath – he isn't, it's something he usually does – so it's in the past._

The letter arrives a few days after Balthazar's visit.

Castiel misses the mail that morning, as he's at work already. The early shift of ER patients, the drunken injuries from over the weekend, finally sobered and shuffling in for treatment. There's a man with a broken hand, two women with earlobes severed by pulled piercings and a teenager with third degree burns from setting off an illegal firework. Castiel stitches and sets and operates with detached compassion, focussing entirely on his work.

On his lunch break he finds himself more often than not talking to Gabriel. Mostly the conversation is limited to work, the cases they've had in their respective departments and their dealings with parents and next of kin. Sometimes however, Gabriel quizzes him about his situation with Balthazar, which is how Castiel ends up explaining, this particular lunch time, about Balthazar's visit.

"What an asshole." Gabriel winces, scrambling a cup of red jell-o with his spoon. "You're not getting back with him?"

"No." Castiel responds, but his eyes stay fixed on his avocado and chicken salad. Gabriel sighs.

"I get it, it's tough, ending a long relationship. But you can't just go back to the bastard because you're lonely."

Castiel privately thinks that Gabriel has never been lonely in his life.

"Don't give me that look." Gabriel gestures with his spoon. "I know what you're thinking, but...when I got divorced, it sucked – it's supposed to suck. And then you wake up one morning and you realise you have no friends, because somehow she got them all – you're lonely and horny as hell, and you just have to...get back on the horse."

Castiel blushes into his cranberry juice.

"You have a horse in mind, don't you?" Gabriel smirks knowingly.

"Not really." Castiel blinks down at his tray. "It wouldn't...it's not even a possibility."

"If the guy goes that way, it's always a possibility." Gabriel announces sagely. "You're hot enough."

Castiel's ears are on fire.

"He's my super, or at least the son of the guy who owns the building."

"Perfect." Gabriel throws his hands up. "He's close, still lives at home – so, available, you should go for it."

"He's shy." Castiel says quietly.

"Then you're the perfect match." Gabriel's smile is genuine, encouraging. "Me and Kali? Total extroverts – and we damn near tore each other to pieces. Shy is good, shy works."

Castiel blushes harder and Gabriel turns the conversation to the new nurse in paeds.

Castiel goes to the corner market on the way home, a nice little place that sells all kinds of deli plates and Belgian chocolates. He selects a bottle of wine, deliberates over whisky and in the end buys a small bottle of twenty year old scotch. He picks out a rotisserie chicken, wild rice salad and stuffed olives, takes the lot to the front counter and takes the bills out of his wallet feeling a little excited, and very very nervous.

On the way back to the apartment building, shrouded once more in Seattle rain, he stops by the pharmacy, and, feeling the tips of his ears burn under his wet hair, he buys a small packet of condoms and a bottle of lubricant.

Because it was always important to be safe, it wasn't like he thought anything was going to happen.

At home, putting his purchases into his mostly empty refrigerator, Castiel feels a little foolish. He is after all, hardly the type of man Dean would settle for. Dean was both pretty enough, and masculine enough to have his choice of any man (or woman for that matter) it was ludicrous for Castiel to assume that Dean would be interested in him.

Yet in Dean's eyes, the few times he'd had a chance to look into them, he had detected a depth and a...hunger that was almost too enthralling.

He doesn't notice the letter until he goes back to the front door, intending to cross over to Dean's apartment and invite him over for dinner. The envelope is green, which gives him a start. His mother used green stationary with the insistence of the very rich and the very particular. He wondered if it was a reminder that he was due at their house for brunch the following weekend.

Slitting the envelope open, Castiel first read the letter with perfunctory speed, hoping to put it aside and go to Dean's as soon as possible. However, he quickly began to realise that the missive he held was something far more pressing than an invitation. It was in fact, such a shock that he found himself sitting on the couch and staring at the piece of paper in his hands.

Castiel took out his iphone and made a call to the third entry on his contact list.

"Meg?"

"Hello Castiel." She sounded almost bored, he could hear her music in the background, the wish-washing of her wipers as she drove through the rain.

"Did you get a letter from mother?"

"She said she'd sent you one." Meg says, indirectly answering his question. "I'm sure she'll invite you to the next one – I'm going out of town then anyway."

"I see." Castiel says quietly.

"It really was her decision." Meg tells him. "I can't be held responsible for the decisions of others, can I?"

"Quite." Castiel replies stiffly. "Goodbye Meg."

"Bye Cassy."

Castiel puts the phone aside, the use of Balthazar's nickname for him not going unnoticed. Meg's point was clear, it was Balthazar's decision to sleep with her, just as it was their mother's decision to disinvite him to brunch. So how could any of it be Meg's fault?

The very words his mother had written, 'best to avoid any unnecessary animosity after all' seemed reasonable enough. But it wasn't. Castiel rebelled against the idea that it was HIS presence that would ruin the occasion. It was Meg who had bedded Balthazar, it was her who had aided in the destruction of his marriage.

Why then, should he be excluded?

Of course he had always known that his parents didn't approve of his sexuality, let alone his marriage and Balthazar in general. But they had chosen not to disinherit him, or to fight against them. That was too unseemly for their tastes. No, they had chosen to wait, and watch and now they had what they had always wanted – an excuse.

Castiel toed off his shoes and curled up on the plush sofa. What had he been thinking? Not only would Dean never be interested in him – he had already failed to hold on to the man he had sacrificed his family for. What was the point? Where was the reward that had been worth the snubs and snide comments? He had wound up alone, with an ex who had fucked his sister out of boredom and a family who saw that act as his just punishment.

Pulling an afghan from the back of the couch, Castiel wreathed himself with it and gave into the exhaustion fast claiming his mind. He had had enough. Enough of being lonely, of being ignored, of being second best. In not trying to be anything else, perhaps he could find some measure of relief from the constant disappointment.

The minutes tick by, and he is lulled by the warmth and quiet. Sleepy but not quite sleeping. A board creaks quietly and a pipe rings with a retort. Castiel barely notices, he has become accustomed to the odd sounds of the apartment. The rumbling, groaning of the maintenance train rarely startles him now. Usually he just ducked his head under the bath water and felt the tub shaking, watched the mirror that reflected the trembling objects of the room.

Someone knocks at the door.

Castiel drags himself off of the couch, stumbling slightly on a dead leg as he goes to answer it.

Dean is standing on the other side, a too big leather jacket shielding his damp t-shirt. Castiel abruptly checks his own clothing, his jeans and shirt creased from lying on the couch, he can tell that his hair is in greater disarray than usual, having been wetted by the rain and then allowed to dry as he lay pitying himself.

"Hey." Dean's eyes momentarily linger on Castiel's face before darting to some point just to the side of him. "I was uh...I just wanted to see how you were doing."

The lie is on the tip of his tongue, '_I'm fine.'_

"I'm doing...exceedingly poorly." He says instead, and Dean seems unsurprised.

"Would you like to come in?" Castiel steps back and Dean seems to hesitate, glancing worriedly at the door to his own apartment before he crosses the threshold.

"Work not going so well?" Dean asks as he follows Castiel into the living room.

"More like life." Castiel puts the throw to one side with an embarrassed sigh. "My parents have...decidedly taken Meg's side over her and Balthazar's involvement."

"That's...actually crazy." Dean mutters, sitting down and awkwardly shuffling out of his jacket.

"Thank you." Castiel says softly. "It's getting so I can't remember why it is that I should expect sympathy." He shrugs. "My family are like that."

"Family is what's important." Dean says, a frown creasing his brow. "They should realise that."

"I think it's a little late in life to teach them any different." Castiel catches himself and looks up guiltily. "I didn't mean to bring you into my pity party, I apologise."

"Everyone needs someone on their side Cas." Dean's half smile is as beautiful as it was the last time Castiel had seen it. "And you have me."

"I honestly don't know what I would have done, if I hadn't met you." Castiel smiles, feeling the familiar, almost canine simplicity of Dean's friendly presence much like an antidote to the frigidity of his own family. "I wanted to say thank you."

"You kinda already did." Dean reminds him.

"No, I...uh..." Castiel hovers indecisively. "I wanted to ask you, if you wanted to have dinner with me...tonight."

Dean looks taken aback, so surprised and suddenly nervy that Castiel thinks he's made a terrible mistake.

"It doesn't matter, if you don't want to...that's fine." He rambles.

"No, I'd..." Dean makes a pained expression, marshalling his words. "Dinner would be great." He smiles, the half lift of genuine pleasure.

"Great." Castiel echoes, allowing his own smile to appear on his face.


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel shows Dean into the kitchen, and together, in between nervous smiles and awkward brushes as they move around the small space, they put together a meal. The chicken is served onto two plates, the salad and olives put in serving bowls and taken to the living room. Castiel brings the wine, scotch and glasses on a tray, and they sit on the comfortable couch, serving themselves rice salad and olives before starting to eat.

Castiel watches Dean the way Dean watches him, in short, covert observations. They sip their wine and eat, Castiel with the fixed delicacy drilled into him by his family, and Dean with a kind of preoccupation, with is eventually overcome by his obvious enjoyment of the food.

They don't talk much as the meal progresses. Dean is hardly gregarious and Castiel is shy himself, so they eat companionably, bodies slightly angled to each other, each man watching the other cautiously over their wine glasses.

Eventually, with the food and wine finished, They were left, plate-less, on the couch, and Castiel felt the awkwardness return for both of them. They leant forwards at the same time, hands brushing on the scotch bottle, Castiel took it, poured two glasses, and in handing one to Dean, leant close on the couch. Dean lifted a hand for the glass, the other arm a welcoming curve, and Castiel found himself leaning with his back to Dean's chest – almost without either of them initiating it.

Dean's hand, the bright crystal tumbler sitting between his strong fingers, rests on Castiel's stomach, the other strokes one finger against his thigh, a hesitant touch rather than a seductive one. Castiel relaxes against it, his free hand touching Dean's knee. There's an uneasy charge between them, that of two nervous people in the clutch of growing arousal, both checked by a fear of rejection.

Dean lifts his glass repeatedly, steadily emptying it of whisky, each time lowering his hand to Castiel's belly once again. Castiel drinks his own liquor, feeling it warm his throat and insides with a swift lick. Dean's finger strokes Castiel's thigh all the while, soft and cautious, the skin beneath prickles and his groin tightens at the sensation. They finish almost at the same time, both lowing their glasses to the floor.

When Dean's hand returns to Castiel's stomach, the fingers spread, and Castiel relaxes under the tentative pressure.

"Cas..." Dean starts, but doesn't continues, hand worrying away at Castiel's thigh unconsciously.

Castiel takes a breath, closes his eyes, opening them only as he turns, shooting one knee over Dean's legs and kissing him hesitantly. Dean freezes, then, as Castiel touches his chest, his hands move to touch Castiel in return, as if he's too shy to instigate contact, and must mirror instead. But he kisses back, and Castiel is happy in that.

They embrace hesitantly, and Castiel angles his head gently, Dean shifts to accommodate him and their lips meet again. Dean's hands suddenly clutch boldly, and he flicks his tongue, mouth opening Castiel's roughly. They kiss until Castiel is wriggling in Dean's lap, the man under him shifting up against him with increasing urgency.

Castiel stumbles to his feet and leads Dean through the apartment to his bedroom. His mind is a pleasantly hazy combination of alcohol and sex infused purpose, and a glance at Dean's eyes shows that the other man feels exactly as driven as he does. They reach the dark bedroom, the huge bed laid out before them like it was always meant for the two of them.

Castiel turns to Dean and they kiss again, deeper, bodies pressing together as their hands explore contours previously only denoted by eye. Dean urges Castiel backwards towards the bed with sudden strength, and Castiel goes, breathless, lying out in the white sheets, pulse hitching as Dean settles a knee between his thighs, leaning over Castiel and stroking his hair from his face with a clumsy hand.

"You're so beautiful." Dean murmurs, kissing Castiel before he can reply, a deep, hungry kiss that leaves him arching up when Dean's mouth disappears. Dean touches the front of Castiel's shirt, dipping his head to kiss the V of exposed skin at the throat, moaning softly as his fingers work the buttons of the garment. Dean grinds his hardness against Castiel's thigh, and the other man returns the gesture, showing his arousal, rubbing against Dean's body.

With the wings of the shirt opened, Dean kisses his way hungrily down Castiel's chest, a hint of teeth behind the ardent lips and heavy breath. Castiel gasps upwards, a moan catching at his throat as Dean's hands trace over his hips.

Castiel feels like a sacrifice, offered up to Dean's hungry exploration, his skin burning from his touch, freezing without it, nipples hardened to expectant peaks, arousal throbbing quick and hot with blood.

But Balthazar's refined love making is like a spectre on him, and each touch from Dean, hungry and reverently possessive, fixated as he is...seems wrong, out of place and unfamiliar. And it is so unfair that he is here with such a wonderful man, so devoted to him...and all he can think of is his cheat of a husband, and how wrong this is.

"Dean..." Castiel pants urgently, feeling strong fingers on his fly. "Dean, stop...please."

Dean pauses, fingers noticeably shaking, and looks up. Their eye contact is absolute, not the shaky, nervous act it has been. Dean's eyes are black with pupil, almost possessed in their desire. He sits up slowly, inching back from Castiel as if marshalling all his control.

Castiel sits up and tugs his shirt closed slowly.

"I'm sorry...I thought that I could do this..." He looks down at Dean's hands on the bed sheet, at his glance they curl up awkwardly. "I was just...I was married for a long time and this...feels...amazing...but...wrong."

He looks up at Dean who looks down at the bed quickly.

"It's fine." Dean says quickly. "It's umm..." he glances sideways. "It's fine." He sounds breathless, distracted. "I should go."

"I'm really sorry." Castiel says again, upset to have allowed Dean to lay himself so bare, and then to have rejected him. "Give me a little time...and we could try again?"

Dean looks up at him quickly.

"Yeah...ok." he says softly. "I'll...see you around I guess."

"Wait, let me..." but before Castiel can get up to escort Dean to the door, the other man has left the bed, the bedroom, and the soft sound of the door closure marks his exit from the apartment.

Castiel lies, still slightly aroused and feeling a stab of guilt for Dean's embarrassment. He hadn't meant to hurt the other man. Alone and sleepy from the alcohol, he returned to the living room, put the plates and glasses in the dish washer and turned out all the lights.

He took off his unbuttoned shirt and undid his pants, putting both over a chair before he climbed into bed. The phantom presence of Dean remained, making him feel worse. If he hadn't said anything, if he'd just enjoyed the moment for what it was, what it could have been, he and Dean would be in bed right now. Instead he's cold and alone, and Dean was probably in his own apartment cursing him for leading him on, feeling rejected and embarrassed. And all the while Balthazar was probably taking some young woman or man to his bed, which was once Castiel's bed too.

He turned on his side, looking at the empty side of the bed, feeling small and cold. When would he be able to let it go? To see the Balthazar as a man who had wronged him, and not a man he had lost.

Castiel fell asleep, curled in on himself.

He remained motionless, whisky and wine lulling him deep into sleep. The clock on his bedside table reeled off the hours in red numbers, changing seamlessly and silently as the night rolled onwards. Outside it rained softly, the drops pattering on the window glass.

Inside the walls, Dean manoeuvred through the passages, brushing against timber and plaster. At the entrance to Castiel's apartment, a secret panel in the back of his kitchen, Dean paused and rested his forehead on the wood.

He still hurt from Castiel's rejection, and in his own bedroom he had lain for the past few hours, feeling his pain and want and fear blur together until he couldn't sit still anymore. He'd watched Castiel as he slept, as he had every night since the other man moved into the apartment, but tonight, after getting so close...it had not been enough.

Dean slid his feet from his boots, rolling up his jeans a little to stop the fabric scuffling on the floor. For such a large man he moved with surprising care and in silence he approached Castiel's bed.

The other man slept soundly, peacefully.

Dean stood beside the bed and watched him, listening to him breathe softly, steadily. After a while he leant closer, learning anew the nuances of Castiel's face, his lashes and lips, the scar on his chin. Castiel sighed in his sleep and shifted. Dean drew back, then gathered his courage and reached a gently hand to touch Castiel's mouth, the curve of his lips still swollen from their kisses.

Castiel breathes softly as Dean withdraws his hand, the tip of his tongue chases the touch of Dean's finger from his lips. Dean likes seeing that.

He glances at the empty side of the bed.

Did he dare stay? The impulse to lie down next to Castiel was a strong one. Ever since he saw him in the bar he'd known that he wanted Castiel to be his, to be by him for the rest of their lives. But it still might be too soon. Castiel needed time, tonight had shown him that. And Dean had waited this long.

What was a little longer?


	7. Chapter 7

Castiel doesn't hear that his sister has gone missing until her body is discovered washed up on the shore of the lake.

By that point, Meg has been reported missing for two days, and all the while Castiel has gone to work, eaten his lunches and suppers, and gone to sleep alone. While he had agonised over his rejection of Dean, and the other man's following absence, his twin sister has been slowly putrefying in the fetid lake water.

Meg was discovered by a dog walker, and Castiel saw her body being carted away on the news, before he got the phone call from his mother, telling him that Meg had gone missing from her apartment and had been found by the lake. The news told him that she had been strangled. Later the next day, Tessa, who worked in the morgue, would tell him reluctantly that his sister had been throttled, and that there were signs of sex, but no abrasions to signify rape.

Even with only the hazy news details however, Castiel was distraught. His sister, for all that she had slept with his husband, was still his sister, and the news of her death left him shaken, staring in disbelief at the unfolding news story on his television.

A knock came on his door at just past midnight, and it took Castiel a moment to rouse himself, he hadn't eaten, or changed, or done anything since he'd gotten in from the hospital. He was still wearing a pair of over bleached scrubs and rubber crocs.

In opening the door he found Dean standing outside, once more showing his awkward demeanour. Today he was spattered in paint again, and there was a scratch on his bare arm, three long scratches that must have come from some jagged surface encountered whilst decorating.

"I heard about your sister." Dean looks up at him for a fraction of a second and then studies the back of his own hand, also spattered with white paint. "It's all over the news...I'm so sorry."

As if this is the trigger his mind has been waiting for, Castiel feels his shoulders slump, his chest tightening.

"I just can't understand who'd do this." He shakes his head, eyes blurring regardless. "Meg is...was..." he mouths silently, the realisation of the necessary past tense reminding him that his twin was currently an empty, cold, body. "She was..."

Dean has hold of him before he can stammer any further into hysteria, and Castiel has never been more grateful for his presence. He grips Dean back tightly and feels himself being shuffled into the apartment.

"You should get some sleep." Dean mutters, moving away slightly.

Castiel holds on to him.

"Stay with me...please?" he asks meekly.

Dean hesitates.

"I know it's not fair...what did the other night...but please stay."

Dean nods after a second, and Castiel leads him into the bedroom for a second time.

Fully clothed they lie down on the bed, and Castiel curls up against Dean's large, dependable body. Dean makes no move to touch him more than the arm around his waist, and Castiel closes his eyes, resting his head against Dean's chest.

He must sleep, but he doesn't feel particularly rested when he wakes a while later. It's dark, the light from the living room is off, and Dean is still beside him, though they aren't touching Dean's body is curved to match his, providing protection subconsciously. Castiel moves closer, and Dean stirs, responding to Castiel's hand on his waist by moving closer. They lie, chest to chest, and Castiel strokes Dean's shirt covered skin, raises his fingers to the three scratches on Dean's skin, then leans up and kisses them gently.

Dean sucks in a shaky breath.

Castiel doesn't know how they end up kissing, his own bitten lips against Dean's soft ones, but the feeling is like a hot drink settling in his chest, warm and comforting. He rolls onto his back gladly, accepting Dean's weight on top of him and wrapping his arms around the other man, nuzzling the side of his face. Dean's sound of pleasure is surprised, and in no time at all they're pawing at each other in earnest.

Dean's mouth is as hot and hungry as it had been the last time they'd lain together, but now Castiel does not think of Balthazar's languorous love making, he focuses on Dean, the naive uncertainty and the adult hunger that war in every touch. He feels devoured, adored, and the swift fire of it chases the chill of death on his skin.

There's a brief, awkward scuffle, and then Castiel goes to find the condoms and lube he'd bought in the hopes that this would take place under better circumstances. Then he's back on the bed, Dean's naked body covering his own, awestruck, blunt fingers exploring him gently. When they finally join, Dean's pleasure is silent, his face transformed in the act, Castiel's own moans are captured by Dean's greedy ears, and they move faster, Castiel never losing the odd feeling that Dean is awestruck, absorbed in the movement of their bodies, as if Castiel's acceptance of him is unprecedented.

Castiel holds on to Dean, trying to reassure with every touch of his fingers, every rise of his body, jsut as Dean's touch anchors him to the world of the living. To the present, in this warm bed, and not in the swampy draw where his sister lies in the mortuary.

Dean strikes the spot inside of him that resonates through his body, and Castiel bucks off of the bed and clings to him harder, crying out and feeling Dean shake, arms and back twitching with muscle, so much dormant strength in such a peaceful man. There's only care between then, and Castiel wonders if perhaps this – this is what love feels like. Not the romance of his early days with Balthazar, but Dean's quiet passion, his careful, calloused fingers.

He thinks that perhaps he says it, tasting the sweat from Dean's skin as he gasps a declaration of this new, strange love.

Dean buries his face against Castiel's throat, whimpers as he comes, trembling like a man much younger. Castiel's release is blinding, swamping him in languid heat, his skin burning from Dean's touches, encased beneath the other man's shaking weight.

Dean shifts, curling up small at Castiel's side, soft brown head of hair resting on his still sweating chest. Castiel strokes his hair, feeling as if he's with a boy of seventeen, rather than a man his own age. The affection he feels at that moment is absolute, a fierce, piercing emotion, as if in letting Dean into his body he had let him into his heart.

His stroking of Dean's hair unleashes the odour of turpentine, and for a second, but no more then that, Castiel thinks he can smell his sisters perfume, Poison, in the sex scented air.


	8. Chapter 8

_Don't forget to check out my novel (link in my profile) and follow me on twitter at JollySnidge._

Castiel wakes the next morning to the sight of Dean sleeping peacefully beside him.

It's been such a long time since he woke up next to someone, what with his odd schedule when still living with Balthazar and then his move to the apartment, that for a moment Castiel just lies there, enjoying the feeling. Dean's face scrunches into a frown and he turns onto his side, arm falling over Castiel's waist. Castiel considers for a moment, then leans over and kisses Dean lightly on the mouth, drawing away just as Dean hums in his sleep and shifts closer.

Castiel realises that he could quite happily wake up like this indefinitely. Comfortable and warm, if a little sore and very very hungry.

It's this last thought that drives Castiel reluctantly out of bed, into the kitchen and on a search for food. He returns to the bedroom with a glass of smoothie and creeps in to find that Dean is leaning up on his elbow, watching him uncertainly.

Castiel favours him with a shy smile, setting the glass down on the bedside table.

"Sorry...I didn't eat anything yesterday." He whispers, climbing back into bed. Dean enfolds him in arms still warm from sleep and Castiel curls up with him willingly, picking up his glass again and sipping the pureed fruit comfortably. When he's finished, and the glass is once more put aside, they look at each other awkwardly for a second, then Castiel lies down, eyes holding Dean's breathlessly, and they kiss hungrily, Dean hardly stopping to breathe in his determination to relearn the arch of Castiel's throat, the curve of his lips.

Castiel's phone rings, and that forces them apart.

For a moment the dark haired man hovers indecisively, then gets out of bed with an apologetic sigh and goes to retrieve the iphone from his discarded jacket.

Dean listens to the conversation through the wall, knowing that it's Balthazar from the way Castiel's voice goes, tired, but also traced with longing.

"...No...I'm coping fine..." Castiel murmurs. "Thank you for calling...I know she felt bad about...she was my sister, she knew I could never hate her..." A slight pause as Balthazar presumably continues to comfort Castiel. "I know...it's awful, last night I could barely believe it had happened...I need them to find whoever did it...I don't think I can get over it 'till then..."

Dean listens hard, but can't hear anything for a while. Maybe Balthazar is talking. Dean has seen Balthazar, not just when the blond man visited the apartment, but before, watching him stand in the street from the buildings upper windows. Dean had even gone to a book signing, a pair of sunglasses hiding his eyes as he'd watched Balthazar charm and flirt his way from the back of the room to the podium.

Such easy charm and perfect charisma were dangerous to him, Dean knew. He could not compete with that effortlessness, could never be as smoothly seductive as the eloquent writer. This worried him, but he knew from his assessment that he could beat the man in other ways. And if it came down to it, Balthazar was smaller than him. Weaker.

Castiel's voice comes back to life.

"I know that this isn't a...great situation...but I understand if you're grieving..."

Dean rests his forehead on the wall. Castiel was so kind, selfless and understanding in a way that few people were. In Dean's experience most people were liars. They were selfish, they could be cruel or careless, cold and distant. But Castiel seemed to have an endless supply of affection and love to give, to his patients, his undeserving family, his callous husband, even his whore of a sister.

Even to Dean himself.

That was what surprised him most, Castiel had spared kindness, even friendship to him, a total stranger. He'd excepted the offer of the apartment in good grace, but had remained thankful, eager to help. But more than that, he had extended offers of affection, love, even sex, that Dean had not had to lie or pretend to encourage. It was almost as if Castiel wanted him, the real him, and not one of the thin masks he could put on to get the things he wanted from the unfeeling people outside.

Almost as if Castiel, like his father, loved him for exactly who he was.

The sound of Castiel's returning footsteps alert Dean to the need to get back in bed, and he does so, just as Castiel opens the door.

"It was Balthazar." He says, then sighs and sits down on the mattress. "I think he's taking Meg's death rather hard."

"Must be hard, having her taken away like that." Dean says, offering his sympathy, which is quite genuine. He has known loss, known the hole the loss of a good person can leave in you.

"She was a good person." Castiel says softly. "Maybe not to me, all the time...but, she helped a lot of people at the women's shelter...volunteered...she'll be sorely missed...she should be."

Dean puts his arms around Castiel and holds him, feeling the other man's fresh misery join with his much older loss, completing a circuit of suffering.

(-*-)

When he finally has to leave Castiel so that the other man can go to work, Dean goes back to the apartment he shares with his father to shower and put on fresh clothes. His father is sitting at the kitchen table, assembling a large and complex deadbolt.

"You were gone all night." John mutters, looking down through his glasses at the assembly of metal parts and fixings.

Dean gets a glass of water, leans with his back against the counter as he drinks it calmly. When he finishes he looks down into the glass.

"Castiel let me sleep with him."

He looks up and catches his father's eye, the victory is shared between them.

"Good boy." John says, though whether of Dean or Castiel the younger man can't determine.

"Husband's calling him again." Dean mutters, looking for the first aid kit, dabbing more antiseptic cream on the scratches he'd gotten from a rusted pipe in the wall labyrinth.

"We'll have to deal with that then, won't we?" John says, screwing the bolt together tightly. He glances up at Dean's worried face. "Don't worry. I'll fix it for you." He raises the corner of his mouth in a smile. "Don't I always?"

Dean feels strengthened by his father's promise, nods and goes to shower and change. In the bathroom is a clear plastic bag of clothing. A t-shirt and jeans, boots, socks, underwear. The things his father wore the night Megan Novak was killed. The bag needs to be taken to the incinerator, and Dean will do that today, before he goes back to painting the top apartment.

John had told him that Meg hadn't suffered, and Dean is pleased about that, for Cas's sake. He doesn't want Castiel to think that his sister died so horribly. It had been an easy death, both for her and for his father. John had told Dean that is was quite simple to get Meg to go with him, from the empty bar where he met her, to his 'home'. In actuality he had driven her to the woods, and then killed her by the lake. Dean suspected that his father had slept with her first.

He showers and gets dressed, takes the bag of clothes down to the incinerator in a black garbage bag. He does some painting and then washes up again, preparing for the time when Castiel comes home.

Only now, he's allowed inside the apartment, like being invited into a work of art that heretofore he had only experienced impotently, from outside of the frame.


	9. Chapter 9

_Don't forget to check out my novel (link in my profile) and follow me on twitter at JollySnidge._

Castiel passes the day at work with difficulty. Working helps to alleviate his grief, but the sights and sounds of so many people in the crowded ER takes its toll faster than usual. He discovers the details of Meg's death from the path-lab, and they do nothing to soothe the roiling pain of the loss of his sister.

At lunch he eats with Gabriel, for, for once, is not full of humour, but under a similar cloud to his own. He picks listlessly at his peach pie and in the end moves to sit beside Castiel, putting an arm around his shoulder and squeezing slightly, until Castiel leans against him. Neither of them says anything, and, next to the night he spent with Dean, it is the most comforting experience Castiel has had.

After work Castiel returns to the apartment, taking the bus rather than walking because he feels so bone tired. Walking up the stairs to his home proves just as tiring, so on the first floor, he opts for the elevator. When the doors clang open on the upper floor Castiel is greeted by the sight of Dean, in a clean, grey, t-shirt and jeans.

"Hey." Dean flexes his fingers nervously. "How was work?"

"Hard." Castiel steps out of the elevator and searches for his keys. "I'm glad it's over."

"Well, I'm glad you're back." Dean says sincerely. "You're where I can take care of you."

It's such a sweet, unguarded thing to say that Castiel smiles, a small smile, but a relived one.

"I'm really grateful for this." Castiel moves closer and touches Dean's waist, feeling the other man's arms go around him immediately. "I know this is a lot to put on you..."

"It's not a problem, trust me." Dean shifts away and waits while Castiel unlocks the apartment door. "I know you'd do the same for me...you're just like that."

"Like what?" Castiel asks, fiddling with his keys distractedly.

"Just...good." Dean shrugs. "Kind like that."

Castiel looks at Dean, so assured of his goodness. It has never occurred to Castiel that he is good, not in a way that could be considered laudable. His parents have only ever commented on his timidity, his lack of ambition and killer instinct. To be simply 'good' has never been a positive thing for him. Until now.

The key turns in the lock and the door gives, surprising them both. Castiel looks in at the sliver of his apartment that the slightly open door affords him a view of.

"Dean...would you like to..."

Dean kisses him, and his confidence catches Castiel off guard. It's a whole new facet of Dean that he hasn't encountered before, stronger and with more surety that he had possessed previously. Still, there is a question in the kiss, and Castiel responds, accepting the gesture.

"Cassy?"

They break apart and Castiel turns, meeting Balthazar's accusing eyes as the other man stands stock still at the top of the stairs. He's wearing his black overcoat, holding a bottle of wine, one of Castiel's favourites, probably from the wine rack at the house.

"I thought you might like some company." Balthazar says stiffly. "Who's...this?"

"Dean, this is Balthazar." Castiel introduces Dean first, diplomatically. "Balthazar, Dean."

"Handy man?" Balthazar guesses unkindly. "I suppose you need it, the place looks like it's falling apart." He eyes the crack in the plaster by Castiel's front door. This hallway has yet to be tended to, and Castiel feels immediately defensive.

"Dean and his father own this building." Castiel tells him sternly. Beside him, Dean bristles like a dog in a thunderstorm.

"I see." Balthazar says, and it seems that he does, his eyes sliding between the two of them, taking in every detail of their body language, from Castiel's defensively crossed arms to Dean's squared shoulders and set expression. "Cas...please, can we just talk?"

"About Meg?" Castiel asks.

"About us...about what happens now." Balthazar says heavily.

Castiel glances sideways at Dean, who remains stolidly silent, reduced to his silent, shy self by Balthazar's presence.

"Don't look at him...please Cassy, please just look at me." Balthazar asks softly.

"Dean and I are going to spend the evening together." Castiel tells him. "Don't treat him like he's not here." Castiel touches Dean's arm. "I really am sorry about this..."

"I'm not going, until you listen to what I have to say." Balthazar interrupts. "Cas, can you imagine how it feels to know that you're blaming me for Meg? And now, finding you...slumming it here with..." He glances up at Dean. "...these appalling conditions."

"I never said I blamed you." Castiel flares up. "This morning I tried to...I honestly thought you might miss her."

"And I'm such a rotten person if I don't." Balthazar finishes bluntly. "Of course I feel bad, but...at least it wasn't you. Cassy...I couldn't take it..."

"Stop it!" Castiel snaps. "How can you do this, now – after I've lost my sister...how can you make this about us. About what you did?"

"Cas..." Balthazar reaches for Castiel's arm and Dean jerks into his path, forcing Balthazar away.

Balthazar looks up at him, then past him to where Castiel still stands.

"Cassy...I don't know what I'm saying...forgive me? please...I just...I can't stand the idea of leaving without you...going back to our house all by myself..."

Castiel looks at him, and sees a mixed up, grieving man, where Dean sees only a manipulative wordsmith.

"...Dean..." Castiel touches Dean's arm. "Would you mind if I had a few words with Balthazar...privately."

"Sure." Dean says, and Castiel wonders why he suddenly sounds so far away. Preoccupied.

"It won't take long...I promise." Castiel squeezes his arm gently and Dean steps aside to let Balthazar through. Dean closes the door at the other man's back, not missing the look of triumph in Balthazar's eyes.

In the stillness of the apartment, Castiel wonders at what point he started to get over Balthazar, and finds he can't quite pin it down. But here he is, feeling, whilst still concerned and a little attached to the other man, nothing close to love. Nothing like the trust or rapidly growing devotion he has to Dean. That Castiel can freely admit, he is falling in love with Dean. And falling fast.

"So...are you sleeping with him?" Balthazar asks snippily, looking around the room.

"Let's not do this." Castiel says.

Balthazar is silent for a moment.

"If you are...sleeping with him...does that mean there's no chance that we can..." he looks up at Castiel. "I mean...we're even now. I broke your heart...and you're breaking mine."

"It's not the same." Castiel mutters, picking up a stack of magazines and taking them to the recycling in the kitchen for lack of anything better to do. Balthazar follows him.

"How? How is it not the same?" Balthazar leans in the doorway, lithe and dark against the pale paint. "I slept with someone else...and here you are...with your...fling."

"You slept with my sister." Castiel says shortly. "In my home, in our bed...and I had no idea until I walked in and saw it." He snaps a towel into place and turns around. "You knew exactly where I was. Which is here, in my own apartment, with my own life...and if that life includes seeing someone else, then really that's no one's business but my own."

"How nice it must be to have claimed the moral high ground." Balthazar murmurs. "I'm here, grovelling to you...because I know I was wrong...the least you can do is admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That you were shagging him all along!" Balthazar cries.

"What?" Castiel is stunned.

"You've been sleeping with that...with 'Dean' for months." Balthazar snaps. "I know ok? You can stop playing the wide eyed and innocent routine."

"I honestly don't know what you mean." Castiel backs away from Balthazar's suddenly vocalised anger.

"I've seen him before...skulking around." Balthazar paces towards him. "Always watching you...always there."

"He owns the building...Balthazar, of course he's here..."

"Before you came here!" Balthazar exclaims. "Months Cassy, _months_. Of seeing him around you, near the house, at the hospital...wherever you were, I could always see him. So don't think I don't know, ok?" He deflates, pricked with self pity. "Why do you think I slept with her? Why do you think I needed second best?...I just wanted you back...I wanted you to notice..."

Castiel listens to this unfurl and can't quite believe any of it. Balthazar's anguish is real, more so than any of his cool and eloquent excuses. And suddenly Castiel can see it, Balthazar's desperation at his long hours, the thought of his having an affair...a wild and desperate attempt to regain his attention. A stunt from one of his trashy novels to show his affection. That had backfired rather horribly, and sent Castiel out drinking, where he had met Dean...

Dean who Balthazar had seen before.

"You saw Dean and I?" Castiel asks.

"I saw him, waiting for his chance with you." Balthazar mutters heavily. "Probably useful having him around the hospital all the time...plenty of opportunities on those 'late shifts'."

"At the hospital..." Castiel breathes.

"I know he's a fucking porter, ok? I saw him in that...green tabard thing..."

Dean had never mentioned seeing him before. Dean had never alluded to the fact that he worked at the hospital, Castiel would have remembered. He thinks back through all their conversations, and not once had Dean said anything that contradicted the assumption that, when they first met, they had been strangers.

And no matter how much Castiel wants to rationalise it away as something Balthazar has imagined, or some kind of misunderstanding...he lived with Balthazar for a long time...he knows when he's massaging the truth and then he's downright lying...and this is not one of those times.

Dean had been around at the hospital, for months prior to Balthazar's infidelity...and he had never said a word about it.

The kitchen cabinets rattle as the maintenance train rolls past. Balthazar flinches at the sound, but Castiel barely notices. Something scrapes under the wall plaster, a piece of old debris dislodged by the rumbling.

"I have to get out of here." Castiel mutters.

"What?" Balthazar asks, still indignant and miserable.

"I think." Castiel looks towards the door, feeling all the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on edge. Something is not right. Something has not been right for a while. "We...should really get out of here...now..."

"Cassy..."

But Castiel is already moving towards the door, running in fact, once he reaches the living room, something is so very very wrong and now that he can feel it he knows he has to get away, get out.

He grasps the door handle and pulls.

And nothing happens.

The door remains resolutely closed, stuck fast. He pulls out his keys with shaking fingers and puts one in the lock, turns, pulls the door. Still locked. In the crack between door and frame he can see a thick latch, a new lock that wasn't there before. A bolt inside of the door itself. He wonders how long it's been there, the panic in his chest reaching new heights.

"Balthazar..." He runs back to the kitchen, only to find it empty.


	10. Chapter 10

_Don't forget to check out my novel (link in my profile) and follow me on twitter at JollySnidge._

Castiel stands in the deserted kitchen for a full minute.

His dishes are still stacked on the draining board, the towel folded beside them, a book he was reading earlier as he brewed coffee is still open to the last page he read. It's his kitchen, scattered with the casual domestic leavings of his morning. It looks like nothing's wrong.

Castiel feels sick.

"Balthazar!" He shouts to the blank walls. He backtracks into the living room. "Balthazar!" Again there is no response. A shiver goes through him. He checks the bedroom, the bathroom. Nothing but the traces of his life, flimsy little trails of belongings that could be cleared within the hour. And no one would ever know he'd been here.

"Balthazar!"

Castiel goes back into the bedroom, tries to open the window to the fire escape. It's stuck tight, and he can see the heads of nails pounded flush to the wood. He scrabbles at them, hurting his fingers in a desperate attempt to work them loose, but a greater strength than his put them there, and they will not be moved. Castiel snatches up a heavy medical encyclopaedia and raises it over his head, breaking the window is his last option.

Two hands grab his wrists, knocking the book loose so that it crashes to the floor.

Castiel twists, catching the familiar scent of Dean and feeling a lurch of fear so intense that it jolts tears into his eyes.

"Dea..." he twists and Dean grabs him tightly as they come face to face. Dean plunges a hypodermic into Castiel's hip, flinching as Castiel whimpers and struggles against him.

"No..." Castiel's plea comes out as a helpless whine as Dean depresses the plunger, sending a cold wave of narcotic through his bloodstream. "Don't..."

"Cas...I'm sorry..." rumbles close to his ear, begging, and Castiel can't feel his legs as he begins to droop into unconsciousness, heart slowing it's rabbit like beat of terror and succumbing to the drug. "I'm so sorry."

(-*-)

Castiel wakes in stages.

The first of these is an awareness of an unpleasant smell, the scent of damp long since dried, mould and crumbling wood. An old shed smell. He can detect a faint whiff of ammonia, strong chemicals and a hospital odour, something so familiar and yet so troubling that it takes him a while to identify.

Blood.

His eyes are heavy, unresponsive, and behind his lids he can sense a light flickering over his face. It makes his head ache.

The surface under him is slightly springy, smelling of burnt dust and Castiel knows he's lying in a strange way, sprawled out when he really wants to be balled up protectively.

Because...

Because of Dean.

Castiel snaps his eyes open and flinches from the light that strikes his unprepared pupils. After a few moments of frantic blinking he realises that the room is dark, and that only a single point of light is striking his face.

The light reflecting from Balthazar's watch.

It's only now that Castiel realises that he is gagged, because his yell is swallowed by the heavy fabric, leaving him with a raw throat and the taste of dust and oil in his mouth.

Balthazar is unmoved, looking at him with one chipped ice eye, the other run over with blood, open and filled with the sticky red liquid.

Behind his gag, Castiel moans in despair, trying to move away, trying to turn over, but his wrists and ankles are bound above and below him. He jerks against the restraints and the bed he's on, for it is a bed, jangles its springs in protest, sagging under him.

On the floor Balthazar is motionless, bent up like a beaten animal, a sack of dripping offal that could never have been a living thing. To Castiel's wide and terrified eyes, another shape reveals itself, another figure in the shadows.

Again he calls out in terror and helplessness against the fabric in his mouth.

Gabriel is lying on the floor with a gaping wound in his chest, face white and stiff as a wax mask.

A panel in the wall opens, and Dean comes in, bending down to lift Gabriel easily, backing out of the room. Castiel snaps his eyes shut and tries to quell the trembling in his body.

He is going to die here.

The thought is followed by a mounting certainty that Dean murdered his sister.

That the day of her discovery had been the day he had given himself over to Dean.

Castiel retches behind the gag, shaking and trying valiantly to control the urge to vomit.

With his eyes closed he can only hear Dean's footsteps approaching, the heavy dragging sound as he moves Balthazar and leaves the room with him. Castiel opens his eyes a slit, there is only blood on the floor now. The last remnants of two men who, in their own way, had cared about him.

Dimly he hears a familiar sound, the roar of the buildings incinerator.

The appalling nature of the situation swamps him, and Castiel hunches against his bonds, protecting himself as much as he is able, knowing that when Dean returns, he will be coming for him.

Footsteps, heavy boots on the wooden floor, alert him to the presence of two people. Dean, and John he supposes, when the man speaks he knows his voice and another dart of fear goes through him. Two killers, father and son. And he had been living with them for weeks, had accepted their charity and their gifts. He had accepted Dean's love, had returned it. Now Castiel wondered what it was Dean wanted from him, what, in his skewed mind had he decided Castiel was a part of.

"Still out?" John mutters.

"Yeah." Dean replies shortly.

They shift silently, Castiel can hear their clothes rustling.

"I should have gotten to the husband sooner." John murmurs.

"It doesn't matter." Dean assures him.

"No, it does." John sighs. "If I'd taken care of him sooner, this whole mess could have been avoided. And that other guy...I should have watched him closer. I knew he was a threat, and then he came here...I was complacent. I'm sorry."

"Dad, it's ok." Dean promises. "Cas is still here. You took care of everything. It's not a problem."

There's a short, loaded silence.

"Dean..." John mutters. "You know you can't...there's no way to keep him. Not now."

Castiel feels a spasm of fear.

"Dad...please don't make me." Dean breathes.

"You have to...I'm sorry son but... it's too dangerous. I learn from my mistakes, and keeping him here is just too risky."

"But it's my risk..."

"I can't let you get caught." John says, pointedly. "You think I want them to put you away? Dean, you're too important to wither in jail." He picks something up, something metal that scrapes on the surface it was laid on. "I can do it...you don't have to see."

"Daddy...please..." And the childlike plea makes Castiel shiver, invoking as it does his memories of Dean from before. Dean, so shy and naive.

"Dean. We have to do this." John tells him sharply. "I have made allowances for you, for who it was you wanted. A lot of fathers would have cast you off for wanting a man. Not me. But now it has to end. He knows too much, and we can't risk him getting out."

"I'll be careful, I can keep him here." Dean promises.

"One mistake Dean. One mistake and..." John coughs, a long hacking, rattling cough that Castiel recognises as symptomatic of a grievous complaint.

"Dad...sit down."

From the sound of it, John does so, heavily, wheezing.

"Here, drink this."

The sound of liquid sloshing. Gasping, slurping of the drink.

Then a long silence.

"Dad...please don't leave me on my own." Dean asks quietly.

"We'll find you someone else." John croaks.

"I don't want anyone else." Dean says softly. "And you don't have a lot of time left."

"I won't leave you. I Promise." John rasps.

"But what if you do?" Dean asks, helplessly.

Silence follows, and Castiel has to will himself to stay still and not open his eyes to see what's going on.

"Dean, I loved your mother, more than anything." John murmurs. "But it wasn't enough to keep her...when I brought her here...when I made her stay, to have you...she hated me." He takes a deep breath. "Can you stand that? Having him, but having him hate you?"

"He's not mom." Dean says levelly. "I won't have to...It won't be like that...Cas won't make me hurt him."

"I really hope you're right." John sighs. "But...you can keep him here, least until I figure out what to do."

"Thank you." Dean sounds so relieved that Castiel feels sick with dread.

"Let me know when he wakes up." John mutters, standing with a scrape of chair legs. "Stay with him."

"I will."

John's boots thump away and to Castiel's dismay the mattress beside him sags as Dean sits down. His fingers, the feel of them so familiar, trace Castiel's forehead.

"Don't make me kill you." Dean whispers. "Please don't make me do that."

Castiel stays motionless, knowing that whatever his fate is, it rests in the hands of a disturbed man and his half mad father.


	11. Chapter 11

_Don't forget to check out my novel (link in my profile) and follow me on twitter at JollySnidge._

"Wake up." Dean whispers softly, however many hours later, Castiel has been pretending to sleep for so long that he actually may have dozed off. A fingers traces down his face, gently and slowly.

Castiel opens his eyes.

Dean looks down at him, as concerned and pleased with his response as if he's been nursing him through an illness.

"Hey." He whispers. "You want some water?"

Castiel looks at him for a long moment, then nods, his throat is dry. Dean smiles slightly and offers him a plastic cup of water, holding it to his lips and lifting Castiel slightly with his other arm so that he can drink comfortably.

"I was worried I'd overdone it with the drugs." Dean tells him, rubbing Cas's back and setting the cup aside. He's perched on the side of the bed like a hospital visitor. "But you're ok? You don't feel sick?"

"No." Castiel croaks. "Dean..." he fights for a moment with pride and self preservation, he doesn't want to make himself weaker, doesn't want to upset Dean and provoke a violent response, but his helpless confusion wins out. "Dean...please let me go." He whispers.

Dean's face crumples, the thin layer of hopeful calm cracking to show how truly helpless he is.

"Cas, please..."He cups the side of his face, wincing when Castiel flinches. Dean backs away like a scolded child. "Please don't be mad at me."

"You killed my sister." Castiel feels panicky tears well up. "You murdered my husband...my friend."

"No." Dean shakes his head, bringing his knees up to his chest and sitting on the very end of the bed. "No...I never killed anybody, Cas...you know I couldn't of."

"Your dad?" Castiel murmurs.

Dean looks down at the bed.

"He was protecting me." He mutters.

"From?"

"From losing you." Dean bursts out, passion outweighing his quiet desperation. "From being alone. Who wants that?"

"So killing my sister..." Castiel's face contorts in accusatory grief. "That was so I wouldn't leave you?"

"She hurt you." Dean says, like it's the most straight forward thing in the world. And maybe to him it is. "Your family, they hurt you Cas...I only wanted you safe, with me."

"Leave them alone." Castiel jerks upwards against his bonds. "You leave, my parents, alone."

Dean looks at him, heartbreak so painfully evident on his face that Castiel has to look away.

"You hate me." Dean murmurs. He gets up off the bed in a movement that makes Castiel flinch at its suddenness. Dean paces the small room like a confused animal.

"You tied me up." Castiel raises his voice, and he knows it's beyond stupid to rile Dean up like this, but he can't stop the words pouring out. "You pretended you loved me, you lied to me, you knew what happened to my sister, and...you, crawled into bed with me." Castiel draws a breath. "Why, why are you doing this to me?"

"I love you." Dean looks so honest and open, like it's the simplest thing in the world.

Castiel looks away.

Dean comes closer, sitting on the bed and leaning over him, touching his face lightly.

"Cas...I saw you in the hospital...when I was there with my Dad?" Dean traces the curve of Castiel's lip, leans closer slowly and rests their foreheads together with a sigh. "You were just so...in control, so kind and calm and...I wanted you. I needed you, Cas...and then I saw you with him." There's a bite in the word, contempt mixed with envy. "And I knew that I wanted you to look at me like that...I knew I could love you more." His hand trails down Castiel's chest, touching him gently as his lips graze Cas's cheek. And despite everything his warmth is so familiar that it makes Castiel's chest ache.

"I know you wanted me." Dean's whisper is almost pained. "I knew it as soon as you saw me, in that bar? I knew you'd love me back...and you did." Castiel whimpers slightly, just as Dean's fingers run along his waistband. Whether out of fear or pleasure even he didn't know, parts of both fill his insides. "I had no idea it would be like that...you know?...but I felt it, you really loved me...all of me."

He touches lower and fear wins out, Castiel feels his muscles draw tight and resisting. And he knows that this is where it's all going to end, that he's going to be raped and killed by a man who...a man who he had loved so much, so quickly. He was going have that torn away, turned into a weapon and used to scourge him.

Dean kisses him, hand stroking gently at his crotch, and Castiel tries to slide away inside his own mind, to block out what is going to happen and just wait for death to end the nightmare he's in. Only, his body isn't ready to comply, and when Dean shifts slightly more on top of him, Castiel's throat produces a soft, terrified sound.

Dean leaps away as if burned.

"Cas?" he looks at him, takes in Castiel's wide, fearful eyes and the tear tracks on his face. "No." Dean shakes his head. "No...you...Cas?" He crouches on the floor by the bed, touches Castiel's hand hesitantly. "Don't do that...you hear me, don't you ever do that." He presses his face against Castiel's stiff fingers, and Castiel feels the wetness of tears on them, and an immense pain flares in his chest.

"You never have to let me, ok? You don't have to be scared of me...you don't have to let me do that." Dean looks up at him. "I'm not a monster." And the unspoken question seizes Castiel's heart like a fist.

Because whatever Dean is, a monster is not it. And despite the fact that he had proved a stalker, a liar and an accomplice in murder...Castiel had worked in his field long enough to know that Dean was also a victim. A victim of some very serious, long term abuse, probably from the moment he was born. The bound man was very quickly realising that John's input into Dean's view of the world had been so strong as to override even basic morality.

Dean wasn't a psychopath, he was incredibly disturbed, wounded but not inherently evil.

Castiel looks down at the other man's bent head.

"Dean...untie me."

Dean shakes his head, not looking up.

"Just my hands...please?" Castiel wets his lips. "Dean...I don't think you're a monster...just please, let me..."

Dean looks up at him, then, slowly, moves to untie Castiel's hands, dropping the electrical cords that bound him to the floor. Castiel's ankles are still attached to the bed frame, but with his hands free he manages to push himself up.

Dean backs of a little, not looking at him.

"It's ok." Castiel holds up a hand, "Come here."

Dean moves like a mistrusting dog unable to resist its master, and the thought sets Castiel on edge. But he keeps beckoning until Dean comes to sit on the bed again, putting his hand on Dean's arm.

"Lie down with me." Castiel whispers.

"You don't want me." Dean mutters, self loathing weighing heavily in his mouth.

"I want to help." Castiel says, sincerely. "And I know you didn't want this...you still don't want to do this." Castiel eases back down onto the mattress, Dean lying against him. Despite everything, Dean is still the man who had comforted him, who had looked at him and touched him with such reverence. "Dean, I didn't lie to you...I care. I think I love you...but you have to let me go."

Dean stiffens. Castiel rubs his back softly.

"Nothing good or right can come of this, you have to know that." Castiel tells him gently. With a twist of fear in his stomach Castiel asks, "Dean...what happened to your mom?"

Dean lets out a long breath, pressing closer.

"She died after I was born." He mutters.

"But why?" Castiel asks, fearing that he's already inferred the answer. "Dean...how did she die?"

"She wanted to leave us." Dean says in a small voice. "I was just a kid...and she wanted to leave me." He shifts uncertainly. "She would have told people about us, about me and my dad...so he protected me. He kept the secret."

"He killed your mother." Castiel murmurs.

"He did it for me." Dean's voice grows stronger, and Castiel soothes him with a touch. "For the same reason he found her..." he stops.

"For the same reason he brought her here?" Castiel finishes.

Dean shivers.

"She used to live in your apartment, when my Dad was the super." Dean mutters. "He...loved her, and she liked him, she really did...and he wanted her to have me, to have his kids. To stay with him."

"But she didn't want to stay." Castiel feels his heart hammering in his chest.

"He built this place for her, this is where she got pregnant, where she lived before she had me."

"Where are we?" Castiel asks, a sick feeling of dread growing him as he thinks of the poor woman who was most likely raped and then kept in this dark room while her child grew inside of her, a child forced on her by a stranger.

"It's dead space, in the walls on the top floor." Dean murmurs. "And if you stay, safe in here – nothing bad has to happen."

"Dean, you don't want this to end like it did with your mom."

Dean shakes his head against Castiel's chest.

"But it will, if you keep me here." Castiel whispers.

"If I let you out, you'll tell the police, and they'll take us away." Dean replies. "My dad...he's sick...and that's why I needed you, so I wouldn't be on my own...but if they take him away he'll die."

"I wouldn't..." Castiel sighs. "I don't want to lie to you." He confesses. "But you need...help, Dean. And if you let me go...I promise I won't leave you while you get it."

Dean eases up and looks at him, considering.

"You promise?" he frowns.

"Yes." Castiel says, and finds that he means it.

Dean seems to think for a moment, then slowly, he gets up and puts his hands on the wires binding Castiel's ankles.

"Dean, just what the hell do you think you're doing?" John barks, setting down a brown bag of groceries as he comes into the room.

Dean whips his hands away as if burnt.


	12. Chapter 12

_Don't forget to check out my novel (link in my profile) and follow me on twitter at JollySnidge._

John stares accusingly between the two of them.

"I'm waiting for an answer Dean."

Dean looks down at the floor, every inch the scolded child.

"Dean." His father barks.

"I want to let him go." Dean's head snaps up, the answer jolted out of him.

His father sighs. "I explained this to you." He gestures at Castiel. "Tie his hands back up."

Dean stays frozen in place.

"I said..."

"No." Dean blinks, surprised by his own disobedience.

John seems equally shocked, then he swallows, turning a glare at Castiel before going to the grocery bag and withdrawing a hunting knife.

"I was going to let you have this time...I thought it would make you happy. But if I can't trust you not to make a fool move like this...perhaps I'd better end this now."

Dean looks at the knife, then his eyes turn almost involuntarily to Castiel, who's clasping his arms to his chest defensively and watching the two men in front of him as if waiting for a sudden strike.

"Dad...don't." Dean moves a little, putting himself between Castiel and his father.

"Dean, stand aside." John hefts the knife, moving a little closer, arm up as if preparing to push Dean away.

"No." Dean sets himself firmly in the way and forces himself to stand as if prepared for a fight. "No, we just have to think of another way."

John looks at him, and Castiel turns cold at the calculation in his eyes.

"Fine." John lowers the knife to his side. "But I brought more sedative, you're going to put him under while we secure him."

John goes to the paper bag and takes out a syringe loaded with the same drug as before, and Castiel flinches, moving as far away as possible. John passes the syringe to Dean, who takes it reluctantly.

"Cas...please, just...stay still, ok?" He raises the syringe, thumb on the plunger. His other hand goes to Castiel's shirt hem, lifting it to show the needle bruise on his hip from before.

"Please don't do this, Dean you don't have to..."

Dean sinks the needle into his skin, and Castiel's pleading is cut off by the jolt of pain and the answering stirring of exhaustion.

"It's this or..." Dean looks at him pleadingly, and Castiel's vision swims. "Don't give him a reason. Please Cas."

Castiel blinks and the shadows swarm in.

The last thing he sees is John behind Dean, raising his knife. Blank faced and grim.

(-* -)

Castiel wakes up, and his head aches. Once again he is assaulted by strong smells and sounds that grate on his nerves. The creaking of the bed, the rattle of pipes in the walls, and a strange, low, animal sound that sets the hair on his arms and neck prickling in fear.

He wets his lips with a dry, heavy tongue. He tastes blood.

Castiel forces his eyes open and finds that he's looking up at the ceiling. He turns his head, which feels stuffed with molten metal, to one side, and catches sight of his shirt, which is saturated with blood.

For several long moments the young doctor finds that he can't breathe, and dimly he realises his body must be in shock from his injuries, because he can't feel anything. It's only after a while that he drags a hand down to the blood and finds that there's no wound underneath it.

Then he remembers, John approaching Dean with the knife, Dean's anxious, ignorant face.

Castiel claws his way into a sitting position, finding that his feet are still tied to the bed.

On the floor is John Winchester, a crumpled blood mass. Even in the dim light Castiel can see the frantic stab wounds on the part of the man that he can see. From the position Castiel guesses that once wounded, John had fallen onto the bed, on top of him.

He's very glad he was sedated for that.

Castiel catches sight of the knife, covered in blood and lying a little further away than the body.

In the furthest corner of the room is Dean.

The other man is sitting, balled up by the wall, knees pulled into his chest, forehead resting on them. The soft keening noise Castiel heard upon waking emanates from his obscured mouth.

"Dean?" Castiel asks quietly.

Dean doesn't move, the trapped animal sound continues.

"Dean, I need you to listen to me." Castiel forces himself to keep his voice level, to sound in control when all he feels is fear and a kind of pain in answer to Dean's own. "And then we can get out of here...you don't want to stay here, do you?" He asks softly.

Dean shakes his head, still not looking up.

"OK..." Castiel glances down at his feet. "I'm going to need you to untie me...and that means coming over here. But you don't have to look at anything but me, alright?"

Dean is motionless for so long that Castiel starts to become frightened again, but then, slowly, he gets to his feet, still hunched up and lost looking as an abandoned child, and he inches across the room, purposefully avoiding the crumpled form of his father.

Dean reaches the bed, his fingers finding and untying the bonds on Castiel's feet. Castiel straightens up and puts his legs over the side of the bed in preparation to stand. When Dean doesn't move, Castiel cautiously puts an arm around him.

"You're doing really well." He whispers. "Now...I think we should go to my apartment, and then we can get you cleaned up."

Dean's face is a mask of insensibility so perfect it's almost like death. But he follows when Castiel leads, and they exit the room. The warren of dark, musty passages outside momentarily frighten Castiel, but Dean moves through them silently, surely, and soon they enter Castiel's apartment through the wine cupboard.

He's surprised to find it filled with daylight. How long was he in that place? A day? Two?

In the light Castiel is shocked to find that Dean is covered in blood, clothes stiff with the drying liquid, hair spiked with it, even his face is marked. Dean follows the doctors gaze, looking down at himself now that he's in the light. A small whimper gets trapped in his throat.

"It's ok." Casitel forces himself to stay calm. "Why don't we...uh...we'll go to the bathroom and wash up."

He leads Dean like a lamb to slaughter, taking him into the bathroom and running a tub full of water. Castiel sits Dean on the lidded laundry basket and coaxes his arms over his head, removing Dean's shirt and then having him stand so that he can divest him of his jeans. Although the situation is different, the surroundings unfamiliar, Castiel is almost used to this – it's his job after all, and he's done his fair share of things like this; large scale trauma victims, abused kids, rape victims.

Dean doesn't even look at him as Castiel ushers him to the tub.

Dean's naked skin is tattooed with odd blood trails, smudges that seeped through his clothes, splashes on the areas left exposed, a thick line across his stomach where shirt and jeans didn't quite touch. Castiel takes all this in as Dean sits motionless in the water.

He picks up a wash cloth and puts it against Dean's hand.

"Let's get this off of you." He says quietly.

It takes a very long time, mostly because Castiel is fearful of provoking a sudden reaction from the almost catatonic man in front of him. With gentle instruction and cautiously comforting murmurings, Castiel manoeuvres Dean as he works. He washes Dean's back, sluices blood from his hair, and then, because Dean has barely started on his face and chest, Castiel washes those carefully, noting the tear tracks in the blood on Dean's face, the scrabbles of fingernail marks that John had left in his dying moments.

Afterwards, Castiel lets the water run out of the tub, the gurgle of the last of it insanely loud in the quiet. He helps Dean out of the bath and wraps him in a towelling robe from the back of the door, leading him through the apartment to the couch.

The bedroom, the sight of his abduction, of their night together, wasn't exactly free of unpleasant associations for either of them.

Dean lies down when pressed, and Castiel goes back to the bathroom to change his clothes and quickly scrub the blood from himself, returning in a pair of pyjama pants and a t-shirt.

Dean is right where he left him, lying on his side, staring at the coffee table directly in front of him. Castiel sits down on the floor by Dean's head, running uncertain fingers through Dean's drying hair. He knows this is just Dean hiding from the trauma, that it isn't permanent, but part of him mourns for the sweetness that's gone out of the other man.

Dean closes his eyes at the touch, and after a long time, when Castiel is sure that Dean is sleeping, he gets up and finds his cell phone, an escape option he hadn't even considered in his panicked impulse to get out of the apartment.

There are three missed calls from Gabriel. He feels his chest ache with the knowledge that his only friend is dead.

Castiel takes a deep breath, and dials.

"Hello? I need to report a murder at my apartment...corner of West, opposite the drug store, apartment 3...no the assailant isn't gone...I'm going to need an ambulance to take him to Mercy Hospital...I'm a doctor there."

While he waits for the police and the ambulance to arrive, Castiel goes back into the living room and sits down beside Dean.

When the police arrive and break in through the dead bolted door, they find the doctor sitting on the floor, stroking their suspects hair.


	13. Chapter 13

_Good news everyone! 'Me and Mine' is now available in hard copy from – there's a link in my profile. But it is still on Amazon as an ebook, just so you know._

_What with classes starting up again now, and me trying to write a second novel, my time is a little tight. So updates may slow._

The endless, stupid questions grate on Castiel's last nerve.

Maybe it's the remains of the sedative, the lack of proper sleep and food, or just the stress of being interviewed; but more than once Castiel finds himself wishing for the dusty quiet of Dean's hidden room.

Always the same questions:

When did you first meet Dean Winchester?

Were you aware of his mental state before this incident?

What did he do with the bodies?

Why did you destroy evidence?

This last filled Castiel with anger, he had tried to calm Dean by cleaning his father's blood off of him. Now the police seemed to think he was an accomplice. After all, it was his cheating husband that had been murdered, his sister as well, and Gabriel had been his friend.

He told them over and over again about John and the strange hold he'd had over Dean. The ways in which both men had thought, the reasoning that had led them to keep him a prisoner.

They did not wholly believe him.

Castiel could tell by looking at them, all of them – the police officers who'd taken his statement three separate times, the officer they'd sent in to tactfully ask about sexual assault, the police psychiatrist, the public defender...none of them knew what had happened to him, but no one believed he was innocent.

Castiel started to think that maybe they were right.

Sitting beside his statue like lawyer in the interview room, knowing that behind the glass on the wall there were people watching him, he wondered if it was all his fault. He had taken Dean up on his offer of housing, he hadn't questioned it, hadn't been suspicious at all. And all those sounds in his apartment, the bang and scrape of something within the walls, he had written it off as an old building having quirks, why hadn't he been more alert? Why hadn't he seen the gaping wound in Dean's personality? Why hadn't he seen it coming?

And deep down he knows that it wasn't his fault, that no one would have suspected _this. _But all the same he feels a kind of creeping sense of guilt that he cannot shake.

Every time he remembers Dean's face, contorted in fear and betrayal as he'd been forcibly sedated and taken away in the ambulance, Castiel feels a fresh stab of guilt.

He had promised Dean that he wouldn't leave him.

The door to the interview room opens, and a new officer enters and sits down opposite him.

"Mr Novak, it's been decided that you're to be released, pending investigation of your involvement in the murders of Balthazar Newman, Gabriel Garrison and Megan Novak."

Castiel feels like a light somewhere has gone out.

"You cannot be serious."

The officer looks at him, and sighs.

"Look at this from our point of view sir, you and Winchester were in a relationship, there's no sign of coercion save your word that you were forcibly held, and all the victims are connected with you...you destroyed evidence."

"But I..."

"I'd advise you not to comment." The lawyer puts in.

"I have needle marks on me...you can test me for the drugs." Castiel grinds out, regardless of his lawyers words.

"That'll be in your defence." The officer allows. "But until we work out what happened down there...you're a suspect."

Castiel sits numbly as the paperwork is filed, then he leaves the station with no idea of what to do or where he's going. In the end he checks into a hotel a few blocks from the station, paying with his credit card. The first thing he does is call the hospital for an update on Dean's condition. To start with the woman doesn't want to give him any details, but Castiel recognises Rachel from psych even over the phone, and begs for information.

"He's..." She lowers her voice. "He's physically stable. The police are here and they want to talk to him once..."

"What?" Castiel prompts, anxiously.

"Once he's restrained." She says apologetically. "Castiel, what's happening, the police keep talking about you...where have you been?"

Castiel chooses not to answer. "Why is he being restrained?"

Rachel sighs. "We left him alone for a few minutes, the sedatives wore off and...he tried to cut his wrists with a broken water glass."

Castiel feels a cold weight settle in his gut.

"Is he ok?"

"I told you, he's stable. He only cut one before we got to him." Rachel goes silent and Castiel hears men shouting in the corridor. "Castiel...he keeps trying to find out where you are, like they're keeping you somewhere..."

"I've been at the police station." He doesn't point out that Dean doesn't know that, unless one of the officers at the hospital mentioned it in a fit of spite.

"What is happening?" Rachel asks.

Castiel hangs up, he knows all he needs to.

He spends the night sleeping on the floor of the bathroom, wrapped in the musty hotel duvet. He has no idea why, only that the bedroom feels too exposed.

The next morning he calls Uriel and asks if he can come back to work.

His boss is strangely silent for a long time.

"The police have been here Castiel." He says finally.

"I know...but the things they're saying about me aren't true." Castiel tells him.

"We can't let you come back." Uriel says, cold and professional, just like always. "Not while there's an investigation like this hanging over you, you know that."

"But..."

"I'll see that you get sick pay while you're on leave." Uriel says. "But you can't come to the hospital. Do you understand?"

Castiel understands, but that doesn't make it easier. More than he wants to do his job, he wants to see Dean. The intensity with which he needs to be with the other man frightens him, and he wonders, not for the first time, if he's been damaged psychologically. It was not beyond the realm of possibility he knew, that he and Dean had forged a crippling bond during those terrible hours of imprisonment.

For days Castiel exists in a kind of blur. He eats at the diner across the street, he sleeps at the motel. He calls his parents a few times, and each time they decline to speak with him. Five days after his escape, he realises he needs new clothes and some of the other things from his apartment. He gets to the street outside before he starts to feel sick, and he realises that he can't go in. The place is still a crime scene anyway.

Castiel goes to the bank and gets a new ATM card, takes out some of his sick pay and buys some new clothes and other essentials. None of the things really feel like his, they're like hospital scrubs, his hotel room like a psyche ward.

Every night he dreams that Dean is dead, that it is all his fault for leaving him.

Two weeks pass and Castiel finally gets a call from his public defender. The police have ruled him out as a suspect. They'd found the needles used to drug him, bearing only Dean's finger prints. They'd also discovered a box of things in Dean's room, small items of Castiel's clothing (A tie, a pair of his underwear, a nametag) as well as pictures of him taken at a distance, clippings about Balthazar's book readings, and about Meg's charity work. Dean had clearly been following him for a long time, collecting information. Castiel recognises the description of the tie, a blue silk one he'd been very fond of, as one he'd lost almost a year ago.

Yet still the urgency of his desire to see Dean refuses to leave him. Presented with all the evidence of Dean's sick fascination, of his unstable nature, his jealousy and corrupted morality...Castiel cannot help but remember the Dean he had first met, and the one he had slowly allowed into his battered heart. That was not a lie, the Dean he had come to love was not an illusion, but the reality buried under John's control. Of this Castiel was sure.

With the investigation of his involvement wrapped up, Castiel is grudgingly allowed back to the hospital. But there he is treated with greater ambivalence than before, and he cannot perform well under the pitying, accusing stares of his co-workers.

Dean is no longer at the hospital.

Castiel learns this by looking up his records, as no member of the psyche ward is allowed to speak to him. He isn't even supposed to be on the floor it comprises.

Dean has been transferred to a mental facility two states away, to undergo intensive therapy and possibly to remain under supervision for a great number of years. The psychiatrist has listed Dean's sicknesses on his transfer form. Dean is a naive sociopath, suffering delusions and lacking in any kind of moral teachings.

Castiel disagrees.

He'd seen Dean after his father's death, had seen him as he tried to protect Castiel from John. As he had pleaded that he wasn't a monster, that he would never force Castiel to yield to him.

Dean had a morality so deeply ingrained that it had surprised even himself.

Castiel quits his job after a week.

He's still living in the hotel, still living out of the plastic bags of new clothing. He has a lot of savings, plus, a large sum of money paid directly into his account by his parents, on the understanding that he stop trying to contact them.

So, he has no real reason to work.

He had once loved his job, he knows that. At one point he had looked forward to each new challenge, had saved lives not just physically, but by supporting broken men, women and children as they made some of the hardest choices possible. Whether to report abuse, to donate their organs, to confess the details of an attack...but now he saw each wounded body as Dean's, and one attempted suicide case resulted in him staying in the staff toilets for an hour, trying to stop himself from passing out with nausea.

The only person he cared about, the only person who still cared for him, was Dean.

And Dean was suffering.

Castiel checks out of his hotel and buys a second hand car, a monster of heavy metal and immense proportions, that makes all the little hybrids and smart cars on the lot look somewhat intimidated. The car reminds him of Dean in some small, stupid way.

He packs his few belongings into the car and drives away from the city, past his apartment without so much as a backward glance.

It turns out, you can cross two states quite quickly if you never stop to sleep for more than three hours at a time.


	14. Chapter 14

_Good news everyone! 'Me and Mine' is now available in hard copy from – there's a link in my profile. But it is still on Amazon as an ebook, just so you know._

Dean's days break down like this; wake up, breakfast, bathe, nothing..., therapy, lunch, therapy, nothing..., sleep.

He washes in a bathtub whilst being watched by an orderly, he eats under their glare along with the other patients. His room is a square of white walls with a metal framed bed, bolted to the floor. Everything smells like bleach and stale air.

The other patients scare him. Dean doesn't want to admit it, even to himself, but they do. There are practically comatose patients, and manic ones that scream at night, sometimes they approach him at meals and they babble at him, and he hates it and wants to hide away somewhere.

He's not crazy. He knows he's not crazy, not crazy like them, not like this. He knows he needs to get out. But no one listens, no one wants him to leave. Because he's crazy, and this is where crazy people live.

In the weeks since he was transferred, his wrist has healed over, ragged and crusted with scabs and fresh scar tissue. He wears the same white t-shirt and cotton pants every day, new sets of exactly the same thing are given to him when he takes his bath.

In his therapy sessions the psychiatrist asks him about his mother, who he can't remember, and his father, who he doesn't want to talk about. They ask him over and over again if his dad ever hit him, or touched him in a way he didn't like. They expect the answer they want. But it isn't true.

Dean tells them about how his dad fell in love with a pretty girl, and got obsessed. He knows that now. John had kidnapped a woman named Mary from her apartment, and had hurt her, raped her. That alone made Dean feel sick, he could never have done that, not to anyone, let alone Castiel. He tells the therapist that he is aware that keeping Mary locked up as she grew ever more pregnant, was a bad thing to do. He isn't an idiot. He knows that his dad murdered his mother, and that was bad too.

He also knows that his dad was wrong to kill, to coerce in an attempt to find him a partner. Without his father's presence, without his logic and forceful personality, Dean grows more sure of that by the day.

The psychiatrist rarely talks about Castiel.

Dean starts to worry that if he doesn't talk about Castiel, he might forget him. He doesn't want that to happen, doesn't want to forget the only person who really loved him. Because, for his dad he was just a part of his delusion, the child Mary gave him, and Dean doesn't really think his mom ever loved him, he was forced on her after all.

But Castiel had loved him.

Sometimes he sleeps with his arms pressed tight against his chest, and he remembers the feeling of Castiel washing the blood from him, settling him down to sleep.

It feels like forgiveness.

So in the gaps between the psychiatrist's talk of rape and violence, Dean talks about Castiel.

He talks about the first time he saw him, and the second...how he wanted to talk to the other man, but couldn't see how Castiel would ever want him. So he'd learnt about Castiel, about his life and the people in it, trying to find something that connected them, that made them match.

He knew he'd done things that were crazy; he'd stolen Castiel's clothes, touched them and felt them against his skin. He'd hidden in his secret spaces and watched Castiel as he ate and slept and touched himself. Dean had pleasured himself only inches from Castiel's naked body. And all of those things were strange, and bad and wrong – he knew that. But then he hadn't known how to make Castiel like him, how to get inside of his world for real.

It turned out he hadn't had to make him do anything.

He tells the psychiatrist about meeting Castiel in the bar, how it was like a sign or something, that he was allowed to talk to him, to meet him properly. And that, after Castiel moved in, he'd felt so much closer to him, and had started to fall in love, properly.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Rein, doesn't like the sessions in which Dean talks about Castiel, he can tell. Sometimes he tries to tell Dean that it wasn't real, that is was something his mind tricked him into.

But Castiel had welcomed Dean into his life, into his bed, and even after everything, all the horrors of his imprisonment, Castiel had stayed to take care of him.

Castiel had loved him.

Dean knew that more certainly than he knew the time of day.

Now though, he knows that Castiel is not going to come for him. Although the young doctor had promised not to leave him, circumstances were clearly beyond his control. The hospital and the psychiatrists wanted to keep him here, and Castiel was probably afraid of him, now that he'd had time to think about it. It was that hopelessness that had led him to cut himself at the hospital, that, and the knowledge that he'd killed his father.

That he was alone.

He didn't blame the other man, but it made the time he spent at the asylum even more unbearable.

Dean's lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. This is his twenty fifth week in captivity, and he wonders if he should stop counting. He's going to be here for life after all.

The lock on the door opens, and Dean looks up at the window. It's dark outside, maybe it's time for his night meds, or maybe it's really early and they're taking him to breakfast. He doesn't have a clock, and time is very confusing without one.

He doesn't want to go anywhere in either case. He closes his eyes. Maybe if he's asleep they'll leave him be.

A hand touches his arm gently.

"Dean?"

He opens his eyes and looks up at Castiel, then scrabbles into a sitting position.

"Cas?" He reaches out and grasps the other man's hand. "You're really..."

"It's me." Castiel's smile is relieved. "It's really me."

"What are you..." Dean looks at him properly, noticing the pale green uniform of the orderlies for the first time.

"I had to wait for them to check my background." Castiel moves quickly, hugging him fiercely. "Had to lay the right paper trail...but I got in." He squeezes him. "Now I can get you out."

He pulls Dean to his feet, leading him towards the partially opened door.

"Where are we going?" Dean can't help but worry they're going to get caught.

"I have a car outside." Castiel turns to him, touching his hand gently. "I've got enough money to set us up, far away. They're never going to find us."

Hope fills Dean like oxygen, running riotously through his cells.

Castiel looks at him, and his worried expression dissolves into a smile so bright and so relieved that it makes Dean's chest ache.

"I missed you so much." The young doctor tells him. "I love you."

Something jerks at the corner of Dean's vision, and his temple throbs like he's been struck there.

"Dean?" Castiel holds out a hand.

Dean blinks, and his chest is tight, his head feels heavy. He knows what's going to happen, because it's happened before.

Castiel wavers once, then disappears.

Dean backs away from the door, still resolutely locked, he climbs back onto his bed, back to the wall, knees up defensively. Tears trickle down his face. Castiel comes to him at night, only sometimes, and he tells him things; that they're escaping, that his dad is fine, that everything is going to be ok.

But Castiel is never real.

The real Castiel is somewhere else, somewhere far away. And he is never coming. Dean tells himself that over and over again, as the sun rises at his small window, blotting out the deceitful shadows and bringing reality once more.

An orderly comes to take him to breakfast, where Dean spoons up oatmeal and resolutely ignores the crazies around him. The_ other _crazies. Then he gets taken to the bathroom, and he washes quickly while another orderly reads a magazine, looking up at him every now and then. Today he also gets shaved, and he wonders what that means, as it isn't his day for shaving.

He finds out, when, instead of taking him to the common room, he gets led to a separate area he has never been to before.

The visitation room.

They sit him down on a blue chair, opposite another blue chair and next to a bolted down table covered in magazines. Then the orderlies leave to stand outside the door. He doesn't like it when they break routine like this, it never ends well.

When the door opens again, Dean looks up, expecting to be taken to therapy.

Instead, Castiel comes in, wearing jeans and a faded T-shirt. He looks nothing like Castiel, not the real one; he has a stubble covered face and too long hair, his clothes are all wrong and he doesn't look as young as he should, he looks tired and sad.

"Hello Dean." He looks like he can't quite believe he's there either, and Dean watches as he takes his seat. "I can't believe it's really you...are you ok?"

"I'm fine." Dean says automatically, because as long as he doesn't do anything the Castiel says, he won't get in trouble. Talking is fine.

"Good." Castiel looks momentarily saddened. "I'm ok too."

Dean doesn't say anything, he's waiting for Castiel to tell him that he has a car waiting, or that they should climb out of the window, or try to break the glass in the door. But Castiel just sits there, watching him.

"Where have you been?" Dean asks eventually.

Castiel seems relieved. "I was working, at the hospital for a while...the police wanted me to stay local...but now I'm here." He reaches out tentatively and touches Dean's hand, where it's lying on his knee. "I live close by, so I can come and see you every day, if you want me to."

Dean knows it's not real, he knows he shouldn't expect anything to come of this, but still he says,

"Yes...yes, please do that."

Castiel squeezes his hand and smiles at him.

"I had to fight it out with the doctors here." He tells Dean. "They don't think it's wise for me to see you...but I got here in the end." He strokes Dean's hand, and Dean likes the feeling, the closeness of the small man. "I'm so sorry it took so long...but I'm here now, I'm not ever going to leave you."

Dean looks at him properly then. At the ragged, tired seeming man who isn't disappearing, isn't trying to make him do anything weird. He looks into his eyes and sees the depth and reality of the emotion there, the way Castiel blinks and breathes and he notices the way his hand feels warm.

It's him, it's really him.

"Castiel?" He wets his dry lips, disbelief coursing through his voice.

Castiel looks at him, and suddenly seems to understand. He gets out of the chair, kneeling on the floor so he can put his arms around him.

"It's me, I'm really real, I promise."

Dean squeezes the smaller man, and he smells real, like deodorant and skin and sweat. He feels a tear drop from his eye, blurring into the cotton of Castiel's shirt.

"I love you." Castiel whispers gently. "Dean...I love you so much...I promise, I'm going to stay here, as long as you want me."

Dean presses as close as possible to the other man, holding onto him and praying that he's telling the truth, that he'll be there for as long as it takes for him to get out of this place.

"Cas...I'm so sorry." He manages after a while.

Castiel pulls away a little, kissing him on the forehead.

"I know." He touches Dean's face. "I forgive you...let's just get you well, ok?"

Dean nods, and Castiel hugs him again, and for the first time, he believes that he can get better.

That perhaps, everything, will be better.


End file.
